Dr Kathleen Connellan

Welcome to my home page, details of my research and teaching interests are listed below. My specific area is that of design and art history and theory and critical race theory.

OPENING PANDORA'S PAINTBOX: Curriculum research into History and Theory of Design in Australian Universities

• Critical race theory and its link with the representation of visual culture. Surveillance, identity and design.
• Modernism and meaning in design: structure and control, whiteness and colour theory, rationalism, the avant-garde’s impact upon design Contemporary design issues: consumerism/sustainability/ethics/idelogies
• Craft and design: Orthodox and non-orthodox interpretations of social and economic development in craft and design. Craft theory: Gender, materiality and embodiment Semiotics in the visual analysis of graphics and illustration.
• The Arts and Crafts Movement: Morris, Marx and Ruskin. The relevance of socialist theory for twenty-first century design and craft practice. ·
• The Renaissance: Humanism and the birth of capitalism. Power, patronage, religion and politics. The Medieval and Gothic period: Community and religion in design. · Ancient and Modern Classicism in design
• Ritual in art and design; African and South African art and craft.
• The 'appliance revolution': implications for domestic design and domesticity in differing social contexts.

Design Research Society

Design History Society

Australian Graphic Design Association

Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association (vice president)

Craftsouth: Centre for Contemporary Craft and Design

Doctor of Philosophy (Architecture and Design) Louis Laybourne Smith School of Architecture and Design, University of South Australia, 2005.

Master of Technology (History of Design) Cape Technikon, 1996

Bachelor of Arts (Honours/ Art History) University of South Africa, 1994

Higher Diploma in Education (PG) Rhodes University 1983

Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours/Painting and Philosophy of Art), Rhodes University, 1982

• Critical Race Theory: Power and control in designed environments, their relationship with social norms. How design reflects difference, hierarchy and hegemony.
• (a) Design History: The meaning of home and the experience of modernity in pre-Apartheid South Africa. (b) Domestic design and domesticity in societies affected by colonialism.
• Design Theory: (a) Whiteness theory - connecting race with colour theory in design and art. (b) Domesticity in design and decoration. (c) Appropriate technology and design for people who are challenged. (d)Ethics in design: Morris, Marx, Ruskin and Papanek. (e) Gender and the domestic design.
• Craft History: The status of craft in relation to art and design within varied socio-economic contexts.
• Design and Art History and Theory Curricula: A: The content, method and ideologies used in the structure and delivery of courses in history and theory to design and art students in Australian universities. This was a project entitled “Opening Pandora’s Paintbox.”
• Art History and Theory: Colour theory; Catholic liturgy and artistic expression.

“Washing White”. Chapter in The Racial Politics of Bodies, Nations and Knowledges, edited by Barbara Baird and Damien Riggs, Cambridge Scholars Press, 2009, pp. 28- 46.

“Ethics in human research: enriching understandings of participatory research”. Sites of Activity: on the edge, Acuads, The Australian Council of Universities of Art and Design conference, University of South Australia, Adelaide, 1-3 October, 2008.

"The Darkness of White" catalogue essay for As if ... distant image. An exhibition of paintings by Greg Donovan. Translation by Kai Wang. 2007. Darkness of White

“Watered Whiteness: thoughts on an exhibition”, Art Monthly Australia, (forthcoming,2009)

“Women, Water and Whiteness.” Lilith: a feminist history journal Vol 16 2007,pp.110-120. Women, water, whiteness pdf

"White skins, white surfaces: the politics of domesticity in South African homes from 1920 –1950". Chapter in Taking up the challenge: Critical race and whiteness studies in a postcolonising nation, edited by Damien Riggs, Crawford House, 2007, pp.248-259. White skins pdf

"White Spaces", Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association, Vol. 2, no.1, 2006, e-journal pages. http://www.acrawsa.org.au/

"White spaces, white faces: an absent presence", Whiteness and the Horizons of Race, Australian Studies Centre, University of Queensland, Brisbane Australia, December 2005.

"Power to the People: Electricity and Domestic Design", Futureground, Design Research Society, Melbourne Australia, November 2004.

"White skins, white surfaces: the politics of domesticity in South Africa circa 1920-1950". The Politics of Design, Design History Society, Belfast Northern Ireland, September 2004.

"Morris & Co. some throughts on an exhibition", a review "Morris & Co." exhibition curated by Christopher Menz at the Art Gallery of South Australia, Art Monthly Australia 160, June 2003.

"Craft and design for disability.” Designing Minds Symposium, Louis Laybourne School of Art and Design, University of South Australia, Adelaide, (July 2000).

“Design for the disabled: some aspects of conditions in South and Southern Africa”. Humane Village Congress, (ICSID) International Council of the Society of Industrial Designers, Convention Centre, Toronto, Canada, 1997.

Young furniture designers and a new South African identity”. Second International conference of the Design Education Forum of Southern Africa, Peninsula Technikon, Cape Town, South Africa, (1996).

“The Existence of a ‘New Craft Movement’ in Western Cape Furniture Design”. Eleventh annual conference of the South African Association of Art Historians, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, (1995).

"Craft: Status, perceptions and implications for South African design", Image and Text: a journal for design, (S.Africa), Vol. 4, December, 1994, pp.12-17.

I am able to provide media comment in the following areas of expertise:

Discipline: Design and Technology

• Relationships between critical race issues and the designed environment.
• The use of colour as a racial signifier in design.