Sarah Jane Pell

Sarah Jane played various extra roles in _Jackie Chan's First Strike (1996)_ and was then cast in small roles in feature-films including: - Talamascan in Queen of the Damned (2002), and - Pretty Girl at Party in Keys to Tulsa (1997) (Starring Eric Stoltz and Mary Tyler Moore). She graduated from Victorian College of the Arts (VCA), University of Melbourne honored with the Dean's Mixed Media Award (1995). Her own first major production 'The Many-to-Many World' premiered in the Great Hall of the National Gallery of Victoria (1997) and it incorporated her love of climbing and design in choreography and sculpture. She earned a Masters of Human Performance at Victorian University of Technology (1998) for examining confined space habitat painting experiments, and a new work 'Substance & Transparency' was commissioned for installation on the NGV forecourt (1998). In 2001, Pell was awarded an Artist Foundation of Western Australia five-year studio residency, a Western Australian Performing Arts Academy Creative Development Award and a Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts R&D grant to explore the art of human performance underwater. She qualified as an ADAS Occupational Diver at The Underwater Centre, Fremantle (2002) and developed her practice-as-research: the inaugural Doctor of Philosophy candidate with an ECU Research Advancement & Enterprise Scholarship, Edith Cowan University. From 2002, her underwater or aquatic-themed performance toured venues in Australia, Asia, Scandinavia, UK, and Europe. The Freedman Foundation awarded Pell with a Travelling Arts Scholarship in 2004 to study the performance archives of the Live Art Unit, Nottingham Trent University, the Live Art Development Agency, London and the British Library. She published 'Walking with Water' DVD (including her PhD thesis) for worldwide release and launching a retrospective exhibition of collected performances at the Western Australian Maritime Museum (2005), Reykjavik Arts Festival, Iceland (2006) Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, and Taipei National Museum Taiwan (2007). In 2006, Pell received BEAPWorks R&D funding to conduct a feasibility study of 'Sub Culture': a weightless environment training and aquatic performance habitat. Joining the dots between underwater performance and movement in the microgravity of space, Pell became a Society for Underwater Technology and the Zero Gravity Arts Consortium member. She presented 'Sub Culture' at strategic free-diving, live art, and space science venues in Europe, UK and US with the support of an ArtsWA Distribution grant. Her career breakthrough came when Dr. Pell was the first artist awarded a scholarship to attend the International Space University, France (2006) where she lead the design and presentation of 'Luna Gaia: a closed loop habitat for the Moon' under the NASA Ames Centre Director. Following the nine-week intensive in Strasbourg, she was invited to present 'Luna Gaia' to NASA Ames (2006) and the European Space Agency (2007). Forging a mirror pathway, Dr. Pell presented her arts vision for 'Sub Culture' at Space Soon: art & human space flight, The Roundhouse, London, (2006) and was invited as an official aquanaut-artist of the Atlantica Expeditions Undersea Habitat Mission (2007). The civilian-led mission experienced numerous delays, so Dr. Pell created a self-imposed residency to maintain diving fitness and motivation: in 2008 she began full-time commercial diving in Macquarie Harbour on the remote West Coast of Tasmania. In 2010, Pell was the first Australian awarded a TED Fellow. NASA Ames priority sponsored Dr. Pell to attend the Singularity University to analyze technology readiness levels and recommend innovative pathways to support permanently human presence in space. She returned to Australia but failed to get her own think tank Biological Enhancement Space Technologies [BEST] off the ground and returned to commercial diving in Tasmania. In late 2011, she received serious head and facial injuries during an on board accident when her vessel was poorly moored, listing in rough seas. It took 3 days by land and sea to evacuate her to Melbourne for surgery. After rehabilitation, she returned to the water to reestablish diving fitness but her confidence in the remote diver safety and her team was lost. She retired from full-time diving in 2012, and the Maritime Union of Australia nominated her as the Diver Representative on Standards Australia Committee SF-017 Occupational Diving (2012-). The European Space Agency nominated Dr. Pell as Co-Chair of the Topical Team Art & Science (2011-2014). She joined RMIT University as a Visiting Researcher (2012-2015) and Research Fellow (2015-) to design systems supporting performance underwater and in microgravity. She wrote, produced and performed Gravity Well (2013) with Lucy McRae and Ocean Synapse (2014) with Ben Burke. In 2015, Dr. Pell commenced a 360 degree documentary Bending Horizons following herself making art to the summit of Mt. Everest. She reached Everest Base Camp 5364m and survived the Gorkha Earthquakes. She will attempt another summit in 2019 to finish production. She played Stellarum in the feature film The Tailor of Autumn (2015), by Australian award-winning producer director Shaun Wilson and was selected as a Scientist-Astronaut for the NASA Experiment S-43, Mission PoSSUM Polar Suborbital Science in Upper Mesophere [PoSSUM]. In 2016, she was cast as the Simulation Astronaut performing underwater in the European Undersea Human-Robotic Trials: Project MoonWalk; and received the prestigious Australia Council Fellowship in Experimental & Emerging Arts. She directed and performed the keynote performances 'The Agency of Human Robotic Lunatics' with Cinema Swarm & Visitor.Vision at Robotronica 2017; and a solo devised and performed keynote 'How to survive...on the Moon' at the Arts House for the Melbourne Festival. In 2018, Pell was the artist-in-residence on the Mars Desert Research Station [MDRS] in Utah, performing, directing and producing 'Mars Olympiad' in 360 6K for VR & immersive Dome production with co-producer the Monash Immersive Visualisation Platform [MIVP].