This Year’s Chair of the Competition Jury Is Jana Kapelová

Jana Kapelová is a visual artist, educator, and curator. She studied at the Faculty of Education of Trnava University, the Faculty of Fine Arts in Banská Bystrica, the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, and the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava. She taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and currently co-leads the Intermedia Studio at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava. In 2014, she won the Oskár Čepan Award. She has exhibited in several solo and group exhibitions at home and abroad. Her works are represented in the collections of Slovak galleries.

In her work, she addresses themes such as labour and precarization, leisure time and self-realization, and the influence of social and cultural environments, upbringing, and education on individuals and society. She was an active member of the initiative Twenty Years Since the Velvet Revolution Did Not Happen.

This year’s competition theme, Freedom of Choice, runs throughout her work. In her projects, she often explores the boundaries between personal freedom and established patterns of behaviour in society. In other words, how in our lives—whether during our studies or at work, but also in the contradictory moments of our society—we make decisions, whether we choose the path of self-realization, civic responsibility, tolerance, or mutual respect.

You can find more about Jana Kapelová and her work here: sites.google.com/site/kapelovajana

Graphic layout: Adrián Dvorský