Carolyn Kirschner

Staff details

Carolyn Kirschner

Position

Lecturer in Design

Department

Design

Email

C.Kirschner (@gold.ac.uk)

Carolyn is a designer and researcher whose work explores complex relationships between humans, ecologies, and machines.

Carolyn is a designer and researcher with a background in architecture. Her work explores the growing entanglements of ecologies and machines in the context of the climate crisis. Working with scientific tools and other technologies she produces fragments from alternate or expanded worlds, with a particular interest in realms which lie beyond the reach of human senses. Her work has been shown at the Centre Pompidou (2023), ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe (2022), Milan Design Week (2024), JUPITER Hamburg (2023), and the Museum of Modern Art Medellin (2025).

Carolyn currently co-leads Year 2 on the BA Design. She previously taught at Parsons School of Design in New York (2019-2023), was a postdoctoral Sawyer Seminar Fellow at The New School (2018-2019), and a fellow of the Designed Realities Studio led by Dunne & Raby (2018-2020). She has held residencies at ZKM (2022), A/D/O Brooklyn (2019-2020), and Kilpisjärvi Biological Station via Ars Bioarctica (2025).

Publications and research outputs

Show/Exhibition

Kirschner, Carolyn. 2025. Iconoclash: Slow Squeeze. In: "Matter. Non-Matter. Anti-Matter", Museum of Modern Art Medellin, Colombia.

Kirschner, Carolyn. 2024. 16.7 Light Years. In: "Milan Design Week, 'Sit, Feast on Your Life'", DOPO? Space, Milan, Italy, 15 - 21 April 2024.

Kirschner, Carolyn; Price, Robin; Jakusa, Ieva; Oiva, Maria and Herzog, Rico. 2023. Autonomous Tree Planting Robot. In: "City Climate meets Creative Coding Festival", JUPITER Hamburg, Germany, 4 - 6 October 2023.

Conference or Workshop Item

Kirschner, Carolyn. 2024. 'A Case for the Intentional Mis-Use of Scientific Tools and Processes as a Productive Approach to Art/Science Research'. In: S+T+ARTS Symposium: Exploring the Intersections of Arts, Science, Technology and Society as Catalysts for Change. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), Barcelona, Spain 29 - 30 October 2024.

Kirschner, Carolyn. 2024. 'A Landscape of False Information: Myths and Models of the Earth's Magnetic Field'. In: Narratives and the Social Sciences: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. University of Palermo, Italy 26 - 29 June 2024.

Kirschner, Carolyn. 2024. 'A Landscape of False Information: Myths and Models of the Earth's Magnetic Field'. In: International Conference on Myths, Archetypes and Symbols: Models and Alternatives. Birkbeck, University of London, United Kingdom 28 - 29 September 2024.

Article

Kirschner, Carolyn. 2022. Rug in the Shape of the Shadow of a Polar Bear. NOIA, 2,

Kirschner, Carolyn. 2022. Ecological Imaginaries. The New Institute,

Kirschner, Carolyn. 2022. NO_POLE: Datascapes and Digital Ecologies. Perspecta: The Yale Architectural Journal, 54, pp. 255-265.

Book Section

Kirschner, Carolyn. 2023. Digital Arctic: Through Machine Eyes. In: Pamela Stewart and Leslie Atzmon, eds. Visual Ecologies of Placemaking. Bloomsbury Visual Arts.

Preiß, Cecilia and Kirschner, Carolyn. 2023. Iconoclash: Slow Squeeze. In conversation with Carolyn Kirschner. In: Lívia Nolasco-Rózsás and Marianne Schädler, eds. Beyond Matter – Within Space: Curatorial and Art Mediation Techniques on the Verge of Virtual Reality. Berlin: Hatje Cantz, pp. 452-457. ISBN 9783775756167

Kirschner, Carolyn. 2021. Sensor Landscapes. In: Gregor Sailer, ed. The Polar Silk Road. Heidelberg: Kehrer Verlag, pp. 256-260. ISBN 9783969000458

Professional Activity

Kirschner, Carolyn. 2025. Ars Bioarctica Residency at Kilpisjärvi Biological Station.

Kirschner, Carolyn. 2022. Speculative Design Mentor for Vinnova, Swedish National Innovation Agency.

Kirschner, Carolyn. 2022. Adjunct Professor at Parsons School of Design.