Sarah Jane Pell was born in Melbourne on the tail of Cyclone Tracy in 1974. It might sound like a dramatic entrance into the world, but for the most part, Sarah had a typically Australian childhood. Her first home was opposite the Harold Holt Pool in Glen Iris. Between the ages of two and eighteen, she lived regional Victoria, sojourning to the sea-side town of Torquay for the summer and to Melbourne for cultural events, sporting competitions and to visit family. Like most Aussie kids, Sarah felt grounded outdoors. She particularly enjoyed climbing trees, building, hammering, exploring bushland and all sorts of water activities. Sarah was naturally athletic, artistic and scholastically inclined nevertheless she hungered for new knowledge and changing environments often taking on as many extracurricula activities as she could. Basketball, tennis, life drawing classes, jazz ballet, high jump, metaphysics and yoga classes were high on the list of priorities.

Pell's childhood preoccupations were put to use and she graduated from Victorian College of the Arts, The University of Melbourne (BFA Drawing) with the Mixed Media Award (1995). Starting an engineering production certificate at RMIT TAFE (1996), Sarah discovered rock climbing winning the National Student Indoor Climbing Championship title. Her first major production ‘The Many-to-Many World’ premiered in the Great Hall of the National Gallery of Victoria (1997) and it incorporated climbing in the trans-disciplinary choreography. She travelled overseas for the first time that year then completed a Masters of Human Performance at Victorian University of Technology (1998) producing various confined space habitat experiments, 'The Many-to-Many World II' and ‘Substance & Transparency’ on the National Gallery of Victoria forecourt (1998).

Sarah supported her art by working for well-respected curators, galleries, festivals and museums before moving to Western Australia in 2001. The sea change shifted Pell’s focus. She was inspired anew by recreational diver courses undertaken at the Perth Diving Academy, coincidently becoming a third-generation Pell diver following her father and grandfather. Sarah was awarded an AFWA studio, a WAAPA creative development and PICA R&D grant (2002) to explore human performance potentials, behaviours, and underwater life-support. She continued training to become a fully qualified occupational diver ADAS 2R at The Underwater Centre, Fremantle (2002) and, with an ECU Research Advancement & Enterprise Scholarship, she developed the project as the inaugural Doctor of Philosophy at WAAPA Edith Cowan University.

Since 2002, Pell's aqueous research has been shown in galleries, museums and site-specific venues across Australia, Asia, Scandinavia, UK, and Europe. Highlights include the National Review of Live Art, Midland (2002), National Review of Live Art, Glasgow (2003), Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (2003, 2004, 2006), BEAP04 Biennale of Electronic Arts, Perth (2004), ISEA04 International Symposium of Electronic Arts, The Baltic (2004), Bonnington Gallery, UK (2004), Multimedia Asia Pacific, Bangkok (2005, 2006) ARC Biennial, Brisbane (2005) Reykjavik Arts Festival, Iceland (2006) and BOOM!: An Interplay of Fast and Frozen Permutations in New Media, Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Second International Women’s Art Festival Taiwan (2007).

Artist residencies include Kickarts Old Court House Studio, Busselton (2003), Time_Place_Space 3, AIT Arts Adelaide (2004), RAW Space, Brisbane (2005), TRACT Live Art Festival, Penzance UK (2006) and freshwatersaltwater Central TAFE Gallery, Perth (2007). Pell was also artist-in-residence at Riks Utstillinger: the Norwegian government touring exhibition organisation (2004), research associate to SymbioticA: the art & science laboratory, UWA and collaborator for ‘Lifeboat’ the international touring mobile life-state lab (2003 - 2005). Workshops include Interdepend with Martyn Coutts, ArtsTAS New Media Creative Development (2005), SymbioticA Genetic Engineering Workshop and Tissue Culture Workshops, UWA (2006) and remote-contributions to Telepresence in Performance with Johannes Birringer, The Performance Space, Sydney (2006) and Yuri's Night Bay Area, NASA Ames, US (2007).

In 2004, Pell was awarded a Freedman Foundation Travelling Arts Scholarship to research the archives at the Live Art Unit, Nottingham Trent University, the Live Art Development Agency, London and the British Library. Pell published ‘Aquabatics as new works of Live art’ in many forums including a DVD for worldwide release and a retrospective exhibition called ‘Walking with Water’ at the Western Australian Maritime Museum (2005) as one part of a submission towards a Doctor of Philosophy, Edith Cowan University (2006). Simultaneously, Pell received BEAPWorks R&D funding (2005-6) to conduct a feasibility study of ‘Sub Culture’: a weightless environment training (wet) performance habitat inquiry and an ArtsWA Distribution grant (2006). Pell became a Society for Underwater Technology member and presented 'Sub Culture' at Blue05 Human performance behaviour and limits underwater, Pisa Italy (2005) and Performing Rights Conference, Queen Mary College, London (2006).

While Pell has established a reputation for exploring human performance behaviour underwater, she has consistently produced work dealing with a range of interests in other media to investigate broader states of being. For example, Pell has written operational protocols and proposed a new, aqueous philosophy, challenging the boarders of post-humanism and the ethics and status of contemporary existence. Pell joined the Zero Gravity Arts Consortium, presenting at the ISDC06 25th International Space Development Congress, LA (2006) and was awarded a scholarship to participate in the SSP06 at International Space University, France (2006) as the only artist. The ISU experience was Pell's second 'sea change' inspiring serious consideration of the syzygy between subspace and outer space. Following the nine-week intensive in Strasbourg, Pell presented 'Sub Culture' at Space Soon: art & human space flight The Roundhouse, London, (2006). She was also nominated by the SSP06 TP Co-Chairs to coordinate the TP 'Luna Gaia' presentation at the Directors Colloquium, NASA Ames Research Centre, California (2006) and independently at the 2nd International Space & Society conference, European Space Agency, The Netherlands (2007). In 2010, Sarah Jane joined the Space Team Project of GSP10 at Singularity University, sponsored by NASA Ames. There she established the thinktank Biological Enhancement Space Technologies (BEST); and Founded Liquid Uni: Altered gravity education and entertainment.

Her mother recently recalled that Sarah was 11 years of age when she first told her family she was planning to go to space. Sarah still believes this is possible and she is passionate about the adopting the principals of underwater architectures and choreographies for use in altered gravity conditions. Dr. Pell is a TED2010 Fellow. She was appointed to the European Space Agency ESA Topical Team Art & Science 2011.

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