Jessica Wilson is one of Australia’s most distinguished artists in site-based theatre and participative art.
Known for her ability to transform meaningful participation into poetic high-profile public outcomes, Wilson invents and realises ambitious projects for people and places across the world.
Her unusual works merge poetics and purpose, to captivate and engage a broad spectrum of audiences in experiences that change the way we see the ordinary world around us.
Set apart as one of Australia's most distinguished artists in this field.
Steph Urruty | Program Manager, ArtPlay
Jessica is at the forefront of an artist movement that places children at the centre of artmaking. She acknowledges and privileges the viewpoints and opinions of children in a world where their status is often ignored.
Noel Jordan | Festival Director, Imaginate
Her standing as a leader and innovator in participative art for children is undeniable.
Aislinn O’hEocha | Executive Artistic Director,
Baboró International Arts Festival for Children
Roles are reversed when children consider a parent's personality before using their face as the canvas for a professional photo-portrait. ISYLT was developed through Artplay's New Ideas Lab in 2017, and has since been presented in seasons across the world including at Krokus Festival (Belgium), Baboro (Ireland), and Westwind (Germany) amassing a collection of over 2000 portraits. In 2025 it will tour USA and the UK.
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PASSENGER
Through the windows of a moving bus, Passenger re-frames the passing world as the frontier of a market-obsessed world and the perfect setting for a Western film. We are seduced into an altered understanding of the environment around us an ordinary conversation evolves into a retribution thriller involving a real horse-back cowgirl!
Passenger premiered in Docklands Melbourne, played at London's Greenwich and Docklands Festival in 2019 and at Art and About in 2020. It received funds from the Australia Council and the City of Melbourne towards its development and UK tour.
“magnificently surreal and gloriously cinematic…. a tightly written and brilliantly executed piece that turns the London landscape into a thriller movie, framing the city so that we see it with the eye of a cinematographer.”
TOTAL THEATRE UK Dorothy Max Prior
CHILD NATON is an interactive digital platform that guides children to have imaginative experiences of the real world around them.
The Child Nation world is entered via QR on alluring signage in public parks and libraries, or via a special collection for schools. It has been live at the State Library Victoria, Singapore's Artground, and will be developed in 2025 with a major Vic Health grant in partnership with South Gippsland Council.
THE
WAYFINDERS
THE WAYFINDERS is a location triggered audio experience which theatricalises built and natural landscapes using the voices and imaginations of children. Developed through ArtPlay’s New Ideas Lab in 2020, the experience for 4-7 year olds invites children to self-navigate and tune-in to the characters and stories of trees, rocks, rubbish bins and pathways.
THE NARRATOR
“The technically complex show happened with such ease that I allowed myself to dream and believe in miracles ... the bus drives another bend, around a new atmosphere-saturated corner, and the narrator cuts in again filling the bus with a story that evokes strong feelings – akin to first love. ”
AR BĒRNIEM Satori
THE NARRATOR was commissioned by Latvia’s 2019 Valmieras Children's Theatre Festival, then remapped onto Adelaide for DreamBig. Experienced from on board a bus it re-frames a whole town as the backdrop for a story about childhood.
SHADOWS
IN TWIN
CITIES
Melbourne children talked with new friends in Jeonju, Korea, using life-sized real-time screens. They traced each other’s bodies onto ancient Hanji paper and then went outside to see where the local wind would take them. Each shadow took on a life of its own, dancing in the air with the city all around them. At the same time, the Hanji shadows of Melbourne children, met the local wind in Jeonju.
This four-year project in partnership with Artplay will culminate in a major public artwork in Melbourne's Federation Square for AsiaTopa in 2025.
ART POLL PROJECTS
Private participation is transformed into public artworks with Jessica's Art Polls. Her digital forms are like an art experience in themselves, eliciting uninhibited responses and resulting in potent metaphorical content. Participants then opt-in for a photo-shoot that expresses their answers and results in a public exhibition.
The original Art Poll project was developed in collaboration with photographer Sarah Walker and Monash University in 2021 exploring young people's experience of lockdown.
LOCKDOWN
LET-OUT
Jessica was commissioned by Monash University to develop a concept that would acknowledge the rights of passage lost by first year students with the 2020 lockdowns. Lockdown Let-Out involved mass participation in very corporal actions. 200 students danced, ran, and fell on three different campuses for ultra slow-motion camera shoots (by Singing Bowl Media) and an on-campus exhibition.