Artist Bio
Janenne Willis (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist and writer based on Bunurong and Boonwurrung Country in Australia, with projects that extend internationally. Janenne explores deep listening, as both artistic methodology and a way of reimagining and remembering relationships between humans, place and the more-than-human world.
Her practice tends to empathy, grief, belonging and awe in collaboration with water, weather, tides and Country. This dialogue is expressed across writing, sound, installation, performance, photography, public practice, collective ritual and artist-led initiatives.
Janenne develops long-term bodies of work — ongoing lines of inquiry unfold across years – through multiple forms. Her projects often emerge through sustained relationships with particular places and communities, inviting audiences into participatory acts of paying attention.
A founding member of artist collective Deep See Survey, Janenne’s interconnected body of work includes projects like Nature Obituary, Sea State, O_C_E_A_N, Deep Sound, SWELL and her forthcoming manuscript, Empathy Bleed. These works ask how art and writing might create the conditions for new and old ways of listening – to one another and nature, as kin.
Artist Statement
Often working in direct relationship with place, I invite water, weather, season and moon phase to shape my practice. Deep listening – with land, with sea, with others – is both my methodology and medium: an enduring line of inquiry and an endeavour to open space for experiencing the world in new and often forgotten ways.
Experimentation, participation and collective ritual are repeated threads in my multi art form practice, which includes writing and spoken word, installation and performance, photography and sound. I am drawn to forms of making that unfold from embodied experience and paying attention – that weave together collected fragments of feeling, memory and lived experience.
Artist CV
SOLO SHOWS
2026 Empathy Bleed – site specific installation and performance reading, Bombay Beach Biennale, California
2026 Deep Sound – site responsive sound sculpture, Deep See Survey 25/26 Season, Flinders
2025 Nature Obituary – participatory performance, National Sustainability Festival keynote, Melbourne
2024 Nature Obituary – participatory performance, Deep See Survey 24/25 Season, Shoreham
2024 Sea State Part 3 – permanent public site specific installation and sound work, Bombay Beach Biennale, California
2023 Sea State Part 2 – site specific installation and sound work, DRIFT Arts Festival, Shoreham
2023 Unanswerable Questions – participatory installation, Bombay Beach Biennale, California
2022 O_C_E_A_N – multiartform, DRIFT Arts Festival, Mornington Peninsula
2022 Floating Gallery site responsive installation, O_C_E_A_N as part of DRIFT Arts Festival, Point Leo
2022 O_C_E_A_N Library – participatory installation, DRIFT Arts Festival, Mornington Peninsula
2022 O_C_E_A_N at MPRG, Whitely x Abdullah – exhibition, DRIFT Arts Festival, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery
2022 Sea State Part 1 – permanent public site specific installation and sound work, Bombay Beach Biennale, California
2019 Frequency / SWELL 5.0 – live art and performance, Melbourne Music Week's tenth anniversary opening show, Melbourne
2019 The Felton Museum – exhibition and performance, Espy Arts, St Kilda
2019 Music As Medicine / SWELL 4.0 – live art and performance, Espy Arts, St Kilda, awarded 4.5 star ArtsHub review
2017 A Note from the Future of Live Music – performance, Live N Local, St Kilda
2017 SWELL 3.0 – live art and performance, Fort Nepean
2015 SWELL 2.0 – live art and performance, Festival Hub, Melbourne Music Week, Melbourne
2014 SWELL 1.0 – live art and performance, Melbourne Music Week, Melbourne
WRITING AND VOICE
2026 Empathy Bleed, debut manuscript
2026 Deep Sound, original text and voice for site responsive sound installation, Deep See Survey 25/26 Season, Flinders
2026 Deep See Survey, Art Book Library, co-founder and facilitator, Shoreham
2025 - 2026 Deep Sound (Prelude), original poetry and voice for exhibition and sound installation, Deep See Survey Group Show, Shoreham
2025 Nature Obituary, original poetry and spoken word performance, National Sustainability Festival, Melbourne
2024-present Deep See Survey, Poetry Circle, co-founder and facilitator, Shoreham
2024 Nature Obituary, original poetry and spoken word performance, Deep See Survey 24/25 Season, Shoreham
2024 Nature Obituary, original text for a 50 card deck of writing prompts for participants invited to write nature obituaries, Deep See Survey 24/25, Shoreham
2024 Letters to Westernport, original poetry for live reading to close out Westernport Writes
2023 Sea State, original poetry and voice for exhibition and site responsive sound installation, Bombay Beach Biennale, California
GROUP SHOWS AND COLLABORATIONS
2025 - 2026 Deep Sound (Prelude) – installation,25/26 Deep See Survey Group Show, Shoreham
2024 - 2025 Nature Obituary – exhibition, 24/25 Deep See Survey Group Show, Shoreham
2022 Saved – photography exhibition, O_C_E_A_N as part of DRIFT Arts Festival, Balnarring
2022 Falling Into Place – multiartform, DRIFT Arts Festival, Mornington Peninsula. Supported by Mornington Peninsula Shire Council
2019 Fraktel – installation, Burning Man, Nevada
2019 We’re All Going To Die – Multiartform, Espy Arts, St Kilda
2018 - 2020 Espy Arts Tours, Classes, Philosophy, Drag and Podcasts – storytelling, multiartform, Espy Arts, St Kilda
2017 Depth of Life and Katalumba – photography, Somers Art Fair, Somers
2016 Live the Dream – radio show, 3RRR Graveyards, Melbourne
SELECT BOARD DIRECTORSHIPS AND ROLES
2024 - present Co-founder, Deep See Survey, Artist collective
2024 - present Chair, Westernport South Coastal Advisory Group
2007 - present, Facilitator and MC, Independent freelance
2020 - 2024 Chair, Flinders Coastal Advisory Group
2018 - 2020 Artistic Director, The Espy
2007 - 2016 Board Director (2007 - 2009), Chair (2010 - 2016), Next Wave
SELECT RESIDENCIES AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
2025 - present, Conscious Writers Club with Maya C Popa, Poetry and Prose Member
2021 - present, The Word Project with Sarah Sentilles, multiple Word Caves, Word River and Right to Write
2023 Life as Poetry Retreat with Pádraig Ó Tuama presented by Small Giants
2025 Re-seeing the Natural World with Haleh Liza Gafori presented by Orion Magazine
2023 Kuenda Mberi with Tariro Mavondo
2025 Deep See Survey Artist Retreat at Dunmore Farm
2019 Police Point Artist in Residence awarded by Mornington Peninsula Shire Council
2019 Australian Wildlife Sound Recording Retreat
2016 Radio Presenters Training, 3RRR
GRANTS AND COMMISSIONS
2026 Deep Sound – Mornington Peninsula Shire Council Performing Arts Fund
2025 Nature Obituary – Sustainable Living Foundation
2024 Nature Obituary – Mornington Peninsula Shire Council Performing Arts Fund
2022 O_C_E_A_N – Mornington Peninsula Shire Council
2022 Floating Gallery – Mornington Peninsula Shire Council
2022 O_C_E_A_N Library – Mornington Peninsula Shire Council Libraries
2019 Frequency / SWELL 5.0 – City of Melbourne
2018 The Felton Museum – Hotel Esplanade and Sandhill Road
2018 Music As Medicine / SWELL 4.0 – Hotel Esplanade and Sandhill Road
2017 A Note from the Future of Live Music – City of Port Phillip Vibrant Acland Seed Grant
2017 SWELL 3.0 – Creative Victoria Music Works Grant
2015 SWELL 2.0 – City of Melbourne and Eventbrite
EDUCATION
100hr Pranayama (Breathwork) Teacher Training, BOTH Yoga
Williamson Community Leadership Program, Leadership Victoria
MBA, Melbourne Business School
BBus, Monash University