About
Jason Maling is a Melbourne-based artist whose work is a mix of object making, live performance, and social practice. His multifaceted projects engage with the distinct conditions of communities and public spaces to explore the dynamics of play and the aesthetics of agency.
Over the past 25 years his projects have been presented around Australia, New Zealand, the UK, France, Portugal, the US, Japan and Singapore. Recent times has seen him collaborate with: the Sound System community of Melbourne, (Heavy Congress, Rising, Melbourne 2022), Back-to-Back Theatre (Single Channel Video, Rising, Melbourne 2022), The residents of Coolum (The Keeper, Queensland, 2018 – 2024), and the people of Nagoya, Japan (A Song to Change the World, Aichi Triennale, 2019).
Maling is the founder and facilitator of Strange Engine (since 2019), a philanthropic development space in Preston, Melbourne that provides logistical and dramaturgical support for artists working on ambitious new projects. He is also a founding member of public art collective Field Theory, who have developed live projects since 2009 including, Site is Set (Melbourne, 2014 – 2016) The Stadium Broadcast, (Christchurch, NZ, 2014), Final Visions, (ACCA, Melbourne 2017) and 9000 Minutes, (Melbourne Biennale Lab, 2016). Field Theory have won multiple Green Room awards and were co-winners of the 2020 Melbourne Prize for Urban Sculpture. Maling holds an MFA from the Slade School, London and a PhD from Deakin University, Melbourne. He currently lectures sessionally within the Victorian College of the Arts.
Jason acknowledges the traditional owners of the land where he lives and works, the Wurundjeri and Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation. He pays his respects to Elders past and present, and celebrates the stories, culture and traditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elders of all communities who also work and live on this land.