Petra Janda

"Petra Janda's sculptures and objects form a base that the artist then infuses with meaning drawn from places beyond the gallery space. In her installations she uses, often agricultural, organic materials in interaction with real bodies, inviting them to action, so that they almost merge into one. 
She creates a meeting space rather than closed art forms. Her materials are consciously selected with ecology and care in mind, creating simple, but powerful holistic pieces.” (jury statement)

Petra Janda (1991) studied Book Design and Paper Shaping at the Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Art and Design in Plzeň, at Tomáš Vaňek’s Studio of Intermedia and at Tomáš Hlavina’s Studio of Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. She is the founder of the platform and database Artbiom.cz, the creative space Artstudio Lůno and the Ecobox of the Academy of Fine Arts.  

As an intermedia artist, she covers a wide spectrum of artistic creation, education and awareness raising, including community projects, ecofeminism and activism. In her work, Janda relates to ecology through the topics of conservation or motherhood, which she also views as a mode of interpersonal communication. She seeks out ecologically friendly approaches to creation and materials in sculpture, through the principles of circular economy or by revisiting the legacy of old crafts and traditions. Much of her work is based on collaboration, love, mutual support and communication.  

Petra Janda has exhibited her own and collective works in Prague's Jelení Gallery, Display Gallery, the interdisciplinary environment of Studio Alta, the POP-UP Gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts, the Zlín-based Kabinet T. Gallery, and abroad in Moravany nad Váhom, MeetFrida Art Space in Hamburg, the Czech Centre Gallery in Berlin, and the EFA Project Space in New York.