Sarah Pennington
Sarah's research explores the implications care and feminist technoscience for speculative design research.
Staff details
Goldsmiths Research Centres/Groups
Sarah is a design researcher with over two decades of experience. She specialises in practice-based design research and feminist design practices, and at the convergence of design and the social sciences. From 2000 to 2015, she was a Research Fellow at the Interaction Research Studio, first at the Royal College of Art and later at Goldsmiths, working on projects funded by the EPSRC and EU. This studio is renowned for its inventive research approaches, such as Cultural Probes, and its collaboration with participants in deploying working speculative prototypes. The design outcomes from these projects have been widely exhibited, including at FACT, Liverpool, the V&A, and Tate Britain.
In 2022, Sarah completed her AHRC Design Star doctorate. Her PhD explores the question of care in design, with empirical case studies that examine a shift from a focus on 'concern' to 'care' in speculative practice. She can supervise PhD students whose research aligns with her interests.
Academic qualifications
- PhD in Design (Goldsmiths) 2022
- MA Curating Contemporary Design (Kingston University) 2014
- BA Fine Art Photography (Glasgow School of Art) 1995
Publications and research outputs
Design
- Design: Datacatcher Gaver, William; Boucher, Andy; Jarvis, Nadine; Cameron, David; Hauenstein, Mark; Pennington, Sarah; Bowers, John; Pike, James; Beitra, Robin and Ovalle, Liliana. 2017. Design: Datacatcher.
- The Wind Tunnel Gaver, William; Boucher, Andy; Jarvis, Nadine; Cameron, David; Hauenstein, Mark; Bowers, John; Pennington, Sarah and Boehner, Kirsten. 2011. The Wind Tunnel.
- The Light Collector Gaver, William; Boucher, Andy; Jarvis, Nadine; Cameron, David; Hauenstein, Mark; Bowers, John; Pennington, Sarah and Boehner, Kirsten. 2011. The Light Collector.
Show/Exhibition
- Datacatcher: At The New Observatory Exhibition, FACT Gaver, William; Boucher, Andy; Jarvis, Nadine; Cameron, David; Hauenstein, Mark; Pennington, Sarah; Bowers, John; Pike, James; Beitra, Robin and Ovalle, Liliana. 2017. Datacatcher: At The New Observatory Exhibition, FACT. In: "The New Observatory", Foundation for Art and Creative, Technology (FACT), United Kingdom, 19 June - 1 October 2017.
- The Prayer Companion Boucher, Andy; Cameron, David; Gaver, William; Hauenstein, Mark; Jarvis, Nadine; Ovalle, Liliana and Pennington, Sarah. 2015. The Prayer Companion. In: "Big Bang Data", Somerset House, London, United Kingdom, 3 Dec 2015 - 20 Mar 2016.
- Datacatcher: Digital Design Weekend, V&A Museum Boucher, Andy; Cameron, David; Gaver, William; Hauenstein, Mark; Jarvis, Nadine; Ovalle, Liliana and Pennington, Sarah. 2015. Datacatcher: Digital Design Weekend, V&A Museum. In: "Digital Design Weekend", V&A Museum, London, United Kingdom, 26 - 27 Sept 2015.
Book
- The Curious Home Beaver, Jacob; Boucher, Andy and Pennington, Sarah. 2007. The Curious Home. London: Goldmiths University of London. ISBN 1904158811
Conference or Workshop Item
- Poster for Design for more-than-human futures: Towards post-anthropocentric worlding Wilkie, Alex and Pennington, Sarah. 2023. 'Poster for Design for more-than-human futures: Towards post-anthropocentric worlding'. In: Design for more-than-human futures: Towards post-anthropocentric worlding. Goldsmiths, University of London, United Kingdom 18 October 2023.
- Inventive care-politics in Design Pennington, Sarah. 2023. 'Inventive care-politics in Design'. In: More-than human aesthetics & Inventive care politics in design. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain 6 July 2023.
- Which Worlds Are Held Together With Care? Pennington, Sarah. 2019. 'Which Worlds Are Held Together With Care?'. In: Who Cares? 8th Biannual Nordic Design Research Society (Nordes) Conference. Aalto University, Finland 2–4 June 2019.
Article
- The Datacatcher: Batch Deployment and Documentation of 130 Location-Aware, Mobile Devices That Put Sociopolitically-Relevant Big Data in People's Hands: Polyphonic Interpretation at Scale Gaver, William; Boucher, Andy; Jarvis, Nadine; Cameron, David; Hauenstein, Mark; Pennington, Sarah; Bowers, John; Pike, James; Beitra, Robin and Ovalle, Liliana. 2016. The Datacatcher: Batch Deployment and Documentation of 130 Location-Aware, Mobile Devices That Put Sociopolitically-Relevant Big Data in People's Hands: Polyphonic Interpretation at Scale. pp. 1597-1607.
- Indoor Weather Stations: Investigating a Ludic Approach to Environmental HCI Through Batch Prototyping Gaver, William; Bowers, John; Boucher, Andy; Cameron, David; Hauenstein, Mark; Jarvis, Nadine and Pennington, Sarah. 2013. Indoor Weather Stations: Investigating a Ludic Approach to Environmental HCI Through Batch Prototyping. CHI 2013 Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 3451-3460.
- Cultural probes and the value of uncertainty Gaver, William; Boucher, Andy; Pennington, Sarah and Walker, Brendan. 2004. Cultural probes and the value of uncertainty. Interactions - Funology, 11(5), pp. 53-56. ISSN 1072-5520
Book Section
- Antarctica SE3: A Conversation on Designing with Care Pennington, Sarah and Margolies, Eleanor. 2019. Antarctica SE3: A Conversation on Designing with Care. In: Kate Fletcher; Louise St. Pierre and Mathilda Tham, eds. Design and Nature: A Partnership. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 186-193. ISBN 9780815362739
Edited Book
- Take Me To Your River (Book) Pennington, Sarah and Kerridge, Tobie, eds. 2023. Take Me To Your River (Book). London: Goldsmiths, University of London.
Film/Video
- Datacatcher Vimeo Channel Gaver, William; Boucher, Andy; Jarvis, Nadine; Cameron, David; Hauenstein, Mark; Pennington, Sarah; Bowers, John; Pike, James; Beitra, Robin and Ovalle, Liliana. 2017. Datacatcher Vimeo Channel.
Project
- Take Me To Your River (Project) Kerridge, Tobie and Pennington, Sarah. 2023. Take Me To Your River (Project).
- Project: Datacatcher Gaver, William; Boucher, Andy; Jarvis, Nadine; Cameron, David; Hauenstein, Mark; Pennington, Sarah; Bowers, John; Pike, James; Beitra, Robin and Ovalle, Liliana. 2017. Project: Datacatcher.
Thesis
- Care-politics in design: Towards an inventive feminist research practice Pennington, Sarah. 2022. Care-politics in design: Towards an inventive feminist research practice. Doctoral thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London