JOLT ARTS

Artists across the planet are frothing at the mouth in their attempts to expand humanity’s experience of creativity. JOLT is an avant-garde arts organisation that seeks to forthrightly contribute to the flowering of local cultures, whilst maintaining an international vision through our total devotion to deepening the creative experience of our audiences and artists alike. We actively seek to remove many of the restrictive barriers that artists and audiences are often faced with. Our open-minded and actively positive attitude is supported by our own definition of what we believe art to be, “any creative act that prioritises creativity.”

JOLT Arts is an inclusive arts organisation with charitable status that creates in-house new cross-disciplinary productions – as a production house – whilst also supporting and presenting the work of other creators. We present new cutting-edge work by local and international artists with a focus on avant-garde creators across a range of contexts and abilities: artists of neuro-diversities, artists of youth, emerging artists and established artists.

Following our inclusive agenda, our programs often mix and match established and emerging artists across a range of presentation contexts: galleries, festivals, concert halls, pubs, arts centres, community venues, site specific venues and more. We have a broad attitude to what art may be and therefore the artists we support regularly create work with artists from a range of disciplines.

Directed by composer and artist James Hullick, JOLT is based in Australia, and governed by a board of directors, led by Margaret Woods. Through strong leadership, JOLT has established an international touring network of producers with JOLT’s 2015 Touring Festival Asia featured on national TV in Japan. JOLT has presented international festivals in Japan, Hong Kong, Switzerland and Australia.

Since JOLT’s inception in 2009, the organisation has devoted much energy to developing projects that engage youth artists and artists supported by the NDIS. Initially incubated by Footscray Community Arts, JOLT has mentored the growth of The Amplified Elephants – a sound art ensemble for artists with neurological diversities. Sonic arts access has become central to JOLT’s identity as the organisation, such that the organisation has developed a range of workshops for people with disabilities.

A key function of JOLT is as a mechanism for introducing emerging artists to professional opportunities, thereby better creating avant-garde art born in the hearts of living, breathing creative communities.