Associate Professor Katherine Moline is an art and design scholar at UNSW. Their research focuses on the dynamics between technology and society and has been recently exhibited at the National Facility for Human-Robot Interaction (2024), published in the journal Design for Health (2023) and the anthologies Dark Eden (Melbourne University, 2022) and Undesign: Critical Practices at the Intersection of Art and Design (Routledge, 2018). Her...view more
Associate Professor Katherine Moline is an art and design scholar at UNSW. Their research focuses on the dynamics between technology and society and has been recently exhibited at the National Facility for Human-Robot Interaction (2024), published in the journal Design for Health (2023) and the anthologies Dark Eden (Melbourne University, 2022) and Undesign: Critical Practices at the Intersection of Art and Design (Routledge, 2018). Her innovations in research methodologies have been documented in SAGE Research Methods Online (2022), Uncertainty and Possibility (Routledge, 2018) and The Routledge Companion to Digital Ethnography (2017). Moline is the recipient of the Research Excellence Award from the Australian Council of University Art and Design Schools (2024) and is currently finalising the monograph The Radical Imaginaries of Socially Engaged Design for Bloomsbury (2025).
The Data Imaginary: Fears and Fantasies, Griffith University Art Museum, Brisbane (2021).
Funded by the Australia Council for the Arts (2020-2021)
https://www.griffith.edu.au/art-museum/whats-on/2021/data-imaginary-fears-fantasies
Climactic: Post Normal Design, Miller Gallery, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh (2016).
https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2016/november/post-normal-design.html
Experimental Thinking: Design Practices, Griffith University Art Museum, Brisbane (2015).
https://news.griffith.edu.au/2015/09/17/experimental-thinking-design-practices-exhibition-opening-at-griffith-university-art-gallery/
Experimental Practice: Provocations in and Out of Design, RMIT Design Hub, Melbourne (2015).
http://www.designhub.rmit.edu.au/exhibitions-programs/experimental-practice-provocations-in-and-out-of-design
Feral Experimental, University of New South Wales Galleries, Sydney (2014).
https://www.artdesign.unsw.edu.au/unsw-galleries/feral-experimental-new-design-thinking
Their current practice-based research includes a critical review of research methodologies in art and design, a series of experimental workshops on socially engaged design and everyday practices with mobile media, CCTV, robots and VR, and a number of ongoing system artworks:
Reimagining Menopause with Kerryn Drysdale and Christy Newman (2024). Funded by The Australian Sociological Association (2023).
The Liminal Threshold, National Facility for Human Robot Interaction (2022-2024). Funded by a UNSW Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture Research Fellowship (2021-2022).
The Change@Work: supporting people through menopause at the Chris O’Brien Lifehouse (2022-2024). Funded by Maternal, Newborn and Women’s Clinical Academic Group (2021)
Expanding Experimental Aesthetics in the Social Imaginary (2018-2021). Funded by The Alastair Swayn Foundation (2020-2021) and a Faculty Research Grant (2018-2019)
Myths of the Near Future: Robots, University of Moratuwa, Colombo (2017) Funded by University of Moratuwa.
Myths of the Near Future: CCTV, The Selfie and Social Activism, University of New South Wales Sydney (2016). Funded by the Ian Potter Foundation.
Myths of the Near Future: Mobile Media, Griffith University Art Museum (2015). Funded by Griffith University Art Museum.
They are the Deputy Director of the National Facility for Human Robot Interaction (Research and Engagement); member of the Community of Practice Queer, Trans and Intersex (CoPQTI); member of City of the Arts Trust Advisory Committee, Blue Mountains City Council; and served on the Reference Group, NSW Women’s Health Hubs | Agency for Clinical Innovation (2022-2024).
My Grants
2023 Reimagining Menopause. Funded by The Australian Sociological Association’s Gary Bouma Memorial Workshop Program. Collaboration with Kerryn Drysdale and Christy Newman.
2021 The Change@Work: supporting people through menopause at the Chris O’Brien Lifehouse (2022-2024). Funded by Maternal, Newborn and Women’s Clinical Academic Group.
2021 The Radical Imaginaries of Data. Funded by the Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture Research Fellow Scheme.
2020 Fashion as Architecture for Menopause. Funded by Alastair Swayn Foundation, Strategic Grant. Collaboration with Alison Gwilt
2020 The Data Imaginary: Fears and Fantasies. Funded by Australia Council for the Arts, Arts Projects for Individuals and Groups. Collaboration with The Data Imaginary Curatorium; Angela Goddard, Amanda Hayman, Troy Casey and Beck Davis.
2016 The Selfie and Social Activism. Funded by Ian Potter Foundation, Conference Funding. Collaboration with Kath Albury.
My Qualifications
University of New South Wales, PhD (Art History and Theory), 2012
University of Technology, Master of Design, 1996
Parsons School of Design, Graphics Diploma, 1990
Sydney College of Arts, University of Sydney, Graduate Diploma (Visual Arts), 1988
Sydney College of Arts, University of Sydney, Bachelor of Visual Arts (Painting/Sculpture), 1986
My Research Supervision
Supervision keywords
Currently supervising
Katherine was awarded the Dean’s Award for Outstanding Research Supervision, College of Fine Arts, UNSW in 2009. Current and recently completed students and topics supervised include:
Currently supervising
Katherine was awarded the Dean’s Award for Outstanding Research Supervision, College of Fine Arts, UNSW in 2009. Current and completed research supervisions include:
Chantelle Baistow (PhD, practice-based) A socially engaged design exploration of coal ash reuse in the NSW Central Coast and Hunter region energy transition with industry and community stakeholders (Commenced 2023)
Danielah Martinez (PhD, practice-based, joint) How can the practice of care through critical design reveal issues of importance in design for an ageing population? (commenced 2021)
Jack Grant (PhD, practice-based, joint) Wasted Value: exploring participant narratives of informal waste collection and recycling in Sydney Australia through design based activism (commenced 2021)
Completions
Benjamin Bailey (Scientia PhD, practice-based, joint) Making Unreality: A practice-based exploration and exposure of virtual reality environment maker knowledge (completed 2024)
Inoka Samarasekara (PhD, practice-based, joint) Remaking the cosmopolitan imaginary of traditional Sri Lankan jewellery impacted by colonisation and globalisation (completed 2023)
Frederic Robinson, (Scientia PhD, Scientia career advisor) Designing Sound for Social Robots: Advancing Professional Practice through Design Principles (completed 2023)
Carly Vickers (PhD, practice-based) Annotating the performance meshwork: experimental visual listening guides from musical gesture for audiences new to classical music (completed 2022)
Matt Harkness (PhD, practice-based, joint) Matters of Concern: A critical investigation of Bioplastics, 3D Printing, and the Maker Movement (completed 2022)
Yulia Brazauskayte (PhD, practice-based, joint) Mediated rhythms of bodies in coordination: design of communication technology for connectedness (completed 2021)
Kyo Hashimoto (MFA, practice-based, joint) Bioregional Bodies: Place-based making and experimental design practices in contemporary jewellery (completed 2021)
Hannah Greethead (M.Phil, practice-based) An Exploration of How Webcomics Can Improve the Accessibility of Future-Oriented Speculative and Critical Design (completed 2019)
Chantelle Baistow (M.Design, practice-based) Co-design and Hyper-consumerism: Technology, Participation, and Ceramics (completed 2019)
Jack Grant (M.Phil, practice-based, joint) All it takes: Visually representing the nuances of homeless experiences (completed 2020)
Deepa Butoliya, (PhD, practice-based, Carnegie Mellon University, external joint) Critical Jugaad (completed 2017)
Penny Craswell (M.Design) Beyond Celebrity: Emergent Narratives in Frame and Inside magazines (completed 2017, Deans Award for Research Excellence)
Lauren Vassallo, (M.Design) Burlesque: redefining the representation of women (completed 2015)
Guy Keulemans (PhD, practice-led, joint) Affect and the experimental design of domestic products (completed 2015)
Jae Moon Jang (M.Design, practice-based) Hidden Alphabets (completed 2013)
Jesse O’Neill (PhD, practice based, joint) The design and social meaning of Australian type specimen books, 1880-1901 (completed 2012)
Marius Foley (PhD, practice based, RMIT University, external joint) The Design Conversation (completed 2012)
Barbara Martusewicz (M.Design, practice-based) Graphic Authorship and the contextual specificity of letterforms (completed 2012)
Neal Haslem (PhD, practice based, RMIT University, external joint) Communication Design and the Other (completed 2010)
Lisa Zamberlan (M.Design) The Pleasure of Appearances & Design (completed 2008)
Kate Sweetapple (PhD, Western Sydney University Nepean, joint) (1998-1999)
My Teaching
Design Research Methods and Theory DDES4200
Design Honours Studio Research Project 1 DDES4101
Design Honours Studio Research Project 2 DDES4102
Research Foundations in Art & Design ADAD9114
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6973-9784