Associate Professor Carolyn Barnes

Biography

Associate Professor Carolyn Barnes (PhD Melb 2004) is Deputy Chair of the Department of Communication Design and Digital Media Design and Academic Director of Research Training in the School of Design, where she teaches research methods for academic and practice applications at Honours and Masters level. Her research investigates how to harness the knowledge and power bound up in individuals and groups to address their primary needs and interests. Using social research approaches, Carolyn works in two main areas. The first is participatory design, examining how co-creation methods can mobilise stakeholder knowledge to achieve the best outcomes for people. The second is research into practitioner networks, which investigates the transfer of knowledge and skills within networks of designers and artists. Her art writing focuses on artist-initiated activity, artist’s networks and the legacy of modernism in Australian non-objective and concrete art post 1980. Craftsman House published her monograph on the Hong Kong-Australian artist John Young in 2005. Carolyn is an associate editor of the International Journal of Design and a member of the editorial board of The Journal of Visual Arts Practice.