Jakub Jansa: THE SILENCE OF THE MOLE

Inside the Biennale – on art, the exhibition and the Venice experience

Jakub Jansa (b. 1989) works with film, installation and performance. Through fiction, humour and the grotesque, he explores social relationships, ideologies and questions of power. He is the creator of the long-running series Club of Opportunities and a recipient of the 2021 Jindřich Chalupecký Award.

For the Czech and Slovak Pavilion at the 61st Venice Art Biennale, he created The Silence of the Mole with the Slovak artist duo Selmeci Kocka Jusko and curator Peter Sit. The exhibition brings together film, sculptural objects and architecture. At the centre of the story is Mr. M., a performer who has played the character of a mole throughout his life. The project explores how imagination and empathy change under the pressures of cultural representation.

The evening is moderated by art theorist Kamil Nábělek (Department of Theory and History, Faculty of Art and Architecture, Technical University of Liberec).

Photo: Renate Hano (Hano), Jakub Jansa at the Venice Biennale 2026, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.