Doctor Alison Barnes

Senior Lecturer, Design,
Design

Biography
Contact
Publications
Projects
Teaching

Biography

I am a committed educator and researcher who places the student experience at the heart of my approach and have over 20 years’ experience in higher education in both Australia and the UK. I have held Director of Academic Program roles at three institutions, am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and have extensive experience of curriculum design and development, and management of staff teams and budgets. I am passionate about my subject, enjoy developing diverse, inclusive learning communities in collaboration with students, and believe in widening participation and the transformative power of education. I also have a particular interest in supporting student transition into work and during my career have developed a range of industry partnerships and work-based learning opportunities to facilitate engagement. My current research focuses on the differing roles graphic design can play in the mediation, construction, and communication of everyday life, belonging and identity. I have published widely, including my research monograph, Creative Representations of Place (Routledge, 2019). Please see Research and Publications sections for more details.

This information has been contributed by Doctor Barnes.

Qualifications

PhD Chelsea School of Art
MA Chelsea School of Art
BA (Hons Class 1) The Nottingham Trent University

Organisational Unit (School / Division)

Design

Contact

Email:	Alison.Barnes@westernsydney.edu.au
Phone:
Mobile:
Location:

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Teaching

Previous Teaching Areas

DESN1007 Graphic Design: Process and Practice, 2023
DESN1009 Graphic Design: Understanding the Principles, 2023

Publications

Books

Barnes, A. (2019), 'Creative Representations of Place', : Routledge 9781138061828.

Chapters in Books

Barnes, A. (2019), 'Geo/graphic design', Non-Representational Theory and the Creative Arts, Palgrave Macmillan 9789811357480.
Barnes, A. (2013), 'Food and cultural identity in the London borough of Hackney', The London Reader 2: London: City of Transformations?, London Symposium on behalf of Academic Conferences 9780957363113.

Journal Articles

Barnes, A. (2023), ''Ooh it were mucky' : mapping memories of New Basford, Nottingham', Cultural Geographies, vol 30, no 2 , pp 187 - 203.
Barnes, A. (2023), 'Kissing the badge : club crests or corporate logos?', Soccer and Society, vol 24, no 5 , pp 607 - 621.
Barnes, A. and Barnes, A. (2017), 'Telling stories : the role of graphic design and branding in the creation of 'authenticity' within food packaging', International Journal of Food Design, vol 2, no 2 , pp 183 - 202.
Pink, S., Catanzaro, M., Sandbach, K., Barnes, A., Barnes, A., Mcneill, J., Gusheh, M., Scotece, E. and Catanzaro, C. (2015), 'Making and sharing the commons : reimagaining 'the West' as Riverlands, Sydney through a dialogue between design and ethnography', Global Media Journal: Australian Edition, vol 9, no 2 .
Barnes, A. (2013), 'Geo/graphic design : the liminal space of the page', Geographical Review, vol 103, no 2 , pp 164 - 176.
Barnes, A. (2012), 'Repositioning the graphic designer as researcher', Iridescent, vol 2, no 1 .
Barnes, A. (2012), 'Thinking geo/graphically : the interdisciplinary space between graphic design and cultural geography', Polymath: An Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Journal, vol 2, no 3 , pp 69 - 84.
Barnes, A. (2007), 'Geo/graphic mapping', Cultural Geographies, vol 14, no 1 , pp 139 - 147.

Conference Papers

Harland, R. and Barnes, A. (2022), 'Food's urban graphic heritage in Walthamstow', Design Research Society. Conference, Bilbao, Spain.
Pan, H., Harland, R. and Barnes, A. (2022), 'Framing multimodal discourses about place as graphic landscaping', International Association of Societies of Design Research Conference, Hong Kong, China.
Harland, R., Barnes, A. and Yolandi, B. (2022), 'The absence of graphic representations of Madiba in Nelson Mandela Park, Mamelodi, South Africa', International Association of Societies of Design Research Conference, Hong Kong, China.

Exhibitions

2009, 'Hackney Conversations ; Type Cast II'
2009, 'Type Cast & Secrets Map'

I am Senior Lecturer in Visual Communication and a member of the Institute of Culture and Society. My research interests centre on the differing roles graphic design can play in the mediation, construction, and communication of everyday life, belonging and identity. I am a chief investigator on the Australian Research Council funded Linkage Project The Collaborative Museum: Embedding Cultural Infrastructure in the City (LP 200301481) in partnership with the Powerhouse Museum of Arts and Applied Sciences. My current research focuses specifically on ‘graphic heritage’, which can be defined as any object through which we experience or are informed about heritage in graphic form. I am currently exploring graphic heritage in relation to ideas of food and migration; critical toponymy and placemaking; sports stadia and supporter rituals and identity; architecture and heritage listing; and, gentrification and design literacy, particularly in diverse urban contexts. The analysis of such graphic heritage offers a nuanced understanding of ways communities and places reflect their differing histories and heritages and in doing so, create everyday heritage spaces. I hold a PhD from the University of Arts London, am a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society and have published widely. My research monograph Creative Representations of Place was published by Routledge in 2019.