Jessica is an Australian artist with a strong practice in image-based theatre and participative art. She has conceived and realised a myriad of artistic ventures which respond to people and places and often involve many hundreds of participants. Her strength is in marrying the aesthetic and the logistical and her ability to bring artists, non-artists and partners together behind exciting artistic visions. Across her 25 year career she has raised more than A$4.5 million (2.5 million pounds) for projects she has conceived and realised independently, sustaining a dynamic career and employing hundreds of artists.
Whilst varying dramatically in scale and process, Jessica’s works are defined by rich poetic imagery and strong sensory experiences. Her theatre backdround deeply informs her project concepts – which look less and less like theatre with every passing year.
She has built a strong profile in recent years creating both small interactive works for children and massive projects with communities and sites, realising commissions and undertaking tours of Australia, Europe and USA.
She directed the massive spectacle DREAM MASONS in 2007, which took place on the wall of the Salamanca Arts Centre and played to 14,000 Hobartians across 3 nights. She secured a Victorian Government Small Town Transformation project for her 2 year long EDGE OF US project involving participant created light galleries in the local parks of 5 tiny coast dwelling towns. She worked with homeless women to create the open air theatrical work DWELLING, which was set inside a prototype affordable house that went on to be relocated and actually lived in, following the performance. Her most recent work, PASSENGER is a theatre work set on a moving bus, which uses the bus windows as screens, and reframes the real world as a cinematic experience.
In the past five years Jessica’s works has been commissioned and/or presented by the Arts Centre Melbourne, the Sydney Opera House, Artplay, the Footscray Arts Centre, QPAT and the Sydney Children’s Festival as well as 25 Australian venues and numerous international presenters including The New Victory Theater in New York.
She sits on panels and works regularly as a mentor and as a teacher practitioner in university contexts. Jessica is a 2019 recipient of the Victorian Creators Fund to explore narrative experienced whilst making a physical journey.