Oskár Čepan Award 2014 – Jana Kapelová
“How can an individual change or subvert established societal norms and conventions, or even escape them? This question seems to be the key theme in the work of Jana Kapelová. In her artworks there is interplay of institutional critique, which reflects her cultural and political involvement in the field of art, and rather a philosophical concern for the options an individual has in order to bypass or transform a (dysfunctional) social system and thereby arrive at self-realization. At the same time, there is a question of the role the art itself has in all of this.”
(T. Stejskalová)
Jana Kapelová (*1982, Trnava) graduated with a Masters’s degree at the Department of Fine Art Education of the Faculty of Education, Trnava University, in the Studio of Intermedia under the supervision of doc. Miroslav Nicz at the Faculty of Fine Arts AKU in Banská Bystrica and with a doctoral degree in the Studio of Video and Multimedia at VŠVU in Bratislava under the supervision of doc. Anna Daučíková.
She is an artist, cultural activist and publicist. She has co-created the “Hore bez” programme (together with Omar Mirza) and has co-founded the Slovak branch of the international project Artyčok.TV (together with Peter Barényi and Katarína Slaninová), which she coordinates. She is a member of the “Dvadsať rokov od Nežnej neprebehlo” (Twenty Years after the Velvet Revolution Didn’t Pass) initiative. These days she works as an assistant in the Studio of New Media II. at AVU in Prague. She lives and works in Prague and Bratislava.
- Oskar Cepan Award 201400:00:02.059
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- How can an individual change or ruin rooted social norms and conventions,00:00:10.757
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- or to escape them - this question is a crucial theme in Jana´s artwork.00:00:14.961
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- In her works there is a plane of institutional critique reflecting00:00:22.960
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- her cultural and political involvement in artistic field,00:00:28.231
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- and philosophical interest in one´s possibility to circumvent00:00:33.270
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- or transform non-functioning social system and reach the self-fulfillment.00:00:39.086
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- Free working time 22, occupation: Head of the store.00:00:45.947
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- Author: Daniela Ceplíková, 1982, Output of Free working time: Song00:00:51.340
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- Year 2012, authors statement: I love music, but Im employed00:00:58.451
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- in another sphere - it makes my living, I enjoy it, but music is my passion.00:00:59.452
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- I always wanted to compose a song, or to write lyrics,00:01:08.274
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- but only thanks to my work, I made Ytong Song.00:01:11.697
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- Right next to my office, new shopping centre was being built,00:01:13.922
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- there was enormous noise, impossible to concentrate.00:01:18.930
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- I often looked out of the window, there were lots of ytongs, nobasils, bricks...00:01:20.781
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- So much that I once dreamed about that.00:01:24.971
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- I was working on invoice and I caught myself of humming the refrain -00:01:28.196
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- Prefabeton, prefabeton, toi toi ... it seemed to me so stupidly funny,00:01:30.574
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- that I took my paper and pen and wrote down all the construction00:01:36.106
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- materials that I saw from my window and I decided to give a new life to00:01:40.152
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- these brand names, to upgrade them to lyrics of a song.00:01:43.181
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- It sounds English, but it does not mean anything.00:01:46.016
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- It is not us living in this space, it is the space living in us.00:02:06.207
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- - "Do you know what is the worst?" - - "So what, tell me, the revolutionist." -00:02:08.079
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- -" When an idea grows into an institution,00:02:11.332
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- because every institution wants to remain the way it is.00:02:13.573
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- there is no more play, so there must be an alternative."00:02:17.290
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- - "And what´s new in Bratislava?"00:02:21.154
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- -"Smog, crowded trams, few green, lot of small critique, little big critique."00:02:24.461
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- - " You are too demanding."00:02:36.345
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- - " Even with myself, as a revolutionist I should know, that the defense00:02:38.486
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- is a grave for any revolt."00:02:43.140
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- - " Do we turn defense into attack?"00:02:45.795
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- -"Today I realized that it is not us living in this space, it is the space living in us,00:02:48.432
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- and the present moment is the future in the future."00:02:57.442
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- After two years working with the lathe, I managed to get to00:03:00.908
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- to TAZ vocational school - they were interested to develop cultural sphere,00:03:05.283
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- and they were searching for educators for after-school education.00:03:09.105
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- I started to work with students since I was 19 - poetry reading club,00:03:13.127
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- quizzes, competitions - maybe it was because of my cooperation00:03:19.703
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- with the school club in all their events,00:03:24.863
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- such as Slovak National Uprising, on 1th May I recited a poem on stage.00:03:27.291
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- My parents rather disregarded it, my father was scolding me for that -00:03:32.350
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- - what is recitation for and how can I earn my living with that.00:03:38.749
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- But somehow recitation helped me to get work I enjoyed,00:03:41.832
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- I didn´t remain working with machine, but I moved up somewhere else,00:03:49.200
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- actually recitation make me move up, it showed me another form of self-fulfillment.00:03:53.189
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- In Jana´s projects the art explores its own sources.00:03:59.757
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- Creativity and its place in the spheres, which are out of institutional field of free art.00:04:11.911
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- The actors of stories produced by Jana in her artwork act based on their free will,00:04:20.069
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- away from collective struggle.00:04:28.033
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- In a slanted perspective we can see historically diverse concepts of work,00:04:31.785
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- the changes it has undergone in the course of time.00:04:37.640
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- In the history of significant events and gestures, Jana´s stories would sink into oblivion,00:04:40.430
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- but surely not in art, that is fond of studying seemingly banal phenomena,00:04:46.677
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- presenting historical events in their complexity.00:04:53.265
Kľúčová téma v tvorbe Jany, Umelci to sú takí ľudia ktorí stále hľadajú nejaké kľúče. Dokonca aj revolúcia tu bola kľúčová. A však niektorý ľudia majú v tejto téme úplne jasno. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyhOmBPtGNM
Nezdieľam názor že sebarealizácia nastane sfunkčnením sociálneho systému.
Literárne keci, aká alternatíva ? k čomu ? k životu? Večne živá téma skoro ako Ježíš Kristus aj ten vymetá všetky priečky v cirkevnom rebríčky a bude naveky cool tak ako takéto kľúčové kidy v umeleckej sekte tunajšej klímy.