Jack graduated with a BFA (Production) from the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) in 2018 and is trained in multi-disciplinary art-making and working in collaboration with artists from different backgrounds and communities. Jack has extensive experience in professional lighting for theatre, dance, shorts films, multi-media works and large-scale and outdoor public events in Melbourne and Victoria. In 2018 Jack was selected as an emerging technical artist of particular promise and was apprenticed by Jack Morton Worldwide (JMW) and Riedel Communications at the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games, working on the opening and closing ceremonies. Jack was the only young artist apprentice selected from Victoria. In 2019 Jack lit and co-produced the award-winning production of Janis, The Life and Soul of a Rock Legend at the Adelaide Festival. Chinese Festivals have been an important part of Jack’s upbringing in Melbourne and significant to his developing understanding of Australia’s multi-ethnic identity. In 2017 Jack worked as projection and lighting designer with choreographers Anna Smith and Feng Feng Wang on their show Re:Moving.
Electric Sky
My artistic medium is the creation of light and I am a trained lighting designer with an Interest in how light creates new architectures of space and allows the public to read environments in new and different ways.
Chinese-Australians are crucial to the rich history and culture of Melbourne, Victoria and Australia. This installation celebrates their importance, past and present in an iconic area. The project is part urban regeneration and aims to animate this particular quarter of Chinatown, which is currently bypassed and neglected at night.
Over a two year period I will commission eight graphic artists of Chinese-Australian descent to create content. The content will be projected moving images based around Chinese cultural narratives and Chinese-Australian history, and will be connected to the seasons of the year.
I will create eight new projections that will each have their own soundscape. The installation will allow participants and passers-by to interact with the moving images and create an immersive experience, the bodies of participants merging with the light, space and graphic images.
I would install the project across Cohen Place between the TAB and the Chinese museum. It would be a horizontal surface that would be transparent cloth. The projections will appear to float above the heads of onlookers, appearing to create a magical new sky.