Jess OLIVIERI

(NSW)

Jess Olivieri creates work that spans performance, sound, video, dance and installation. Jessʼ practice investigates the social and cultural factors that influence how we inhabit public space. Most recently Jessʼs work made ‘I am an Islandʼ for the 2012/13 Sydney Festival and curated the performance program ‘Hi Friends’ for the MCAʼs ARTBAR project. Earlier this month Jess created ‘For you the bell tolls’ for the MCA and is the current co-curator of ALASKA projects performance program ‘Restaging, Restaging History’.

In 2012 Jess showed at GOMA as part of Contemporary: Women as well as Campbeltown Art Centre’s Transmission in a collaboration with the Sydney Chamber Choir. In 2011 Jessʼs work with Hayley Forward and the Parachutes for Ladies was featured in MCAʼs Primavera 2011, Action Stations curated by Natalie Cursio at Campbelltown Arts Centre, she presented the participatory audio dance project Dance of Death, Perth Cultural Centre and was part of the exhibition Bad Angle, Still Gallery, Sydney. In 2010 Jess and Hayley with the Parachutes for Ladies presented “I thought a musical was being made”, at the 2010 Next Wave Festival and The view from here, West space.

WHITE HORSE, VRYSTAAT FESTIVAL 2015

Jess Olivieri created a spectacular parade of 200 costumed characters and a celebratory feast in South Africa.  In the middle of South Africa on a hill, where zebras and giraffes roam free, lies a mysterious rock formation known as the White Horse of Bloemfontein. The White Horse by Jess Olivieri celebrated, reconfigured and allowed space for the multiple narratives that surround this curiously contested monument, to be embodied and enriched.  200 members of the local community came together in a fantastical reimagining of the White Horse monument. By participating in a series of workshops and creating elaborate costumes to be worn in the parade, the work culminated in a celebratory feast at the foot of the White Horse. The ‘characters’ developed in the workshops will became subjects of a photographic series; protagonists in a documentary style fictional film and an accompanying storybook style publication. The artist will choreograph the entire event, with assistance from Gali Maleboeg, who will coordinate the contribution of local community groups such as the VChords Choir and others.