Valentýna Janů (°1994, Prague, CZ) graduated from Prague’s FAMU in photography and later studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (Studio of Intermedia Work II/Dušan Zahoranský and Pavla Sceranková School). Her suggestive installations often combine spectacular videos and video essays in environments completed by fabrics and other materials and objects. They playfully address big life questions determined by the world of technology, patriarchal system and climate change. Janů explores the relations between the daily struggles of individuals and the global perspective. Despite being rather critical, her work is also almost obsessively romantic. The artist recently presented her work at Kunstverein Dresden (2022), EXILE Gallery in Vienna (2019) and National Gallery Prague (2018). In 2021, she became the laureate of the Jindřich Chalupecký Award. She is currently the head of the Intermedia Studio at FAVU Brno (together with Jonáš Strouhal).

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The exhibition Inside Out and Round and Round is a multi-layered installation that invites the visitor on the edge of domestic and outside world experience. Janů's work explores gendered narratives by twisting the forms of objects and allowing them to escape their practical, sometimes decorative purpose. Placed objects carry connotations of domesticity, very often linked to the stereotypical image of womanhood. Empty vases waiting for the simple aesthetic gesture of arranging flowers are now melted, trying to bend and leave their placement. Household fabrics, from which most objects included in the exhibition are made, have plain patterns basted with other layers of stripes (bars) and image fragments. The insides want out, the outsides disrupt the interior space. Missing flowers have been transformed into sofa-like cushions that now bloom on the walls. Twisted pillows display their sparkling disco-like guts, ready for a night out. By inverting and transforming everyday objects, Janů gives them new and unexpected meaning.