Gareth Proskourine-Barnett

Biography

Gareth Proskourine-Barnett is an interdisciplinary artist:designer, researcher and educator. Since graduating with an MA in Communication Design from Central Saint Martins in 2011 he has worked on a range of self-initiated and commissioned projects, taken part in artist residencies and delivered workshops internationally. His work applies design fictions to speculate on unstable landscapes and the way materials embody histories, incorporating self-publishing, lecture-performances and essay-films as part of an expanded approach to visual communication. Recent projects have been presented at the V&A’s Digital Futures Symposium at the Institute of Computing in London, at The New Art Gallery in Walsall, at the REFORM Design Biennale in Denmark, and at Plan8t in Changsha, China.



Gareth has a PhD in Critical and Historical Studies from the Royal College of Art. His practice-based research attempted to excavate the debris of the Birmingham Central Library from within the internet, adopting an essayistic approach that combined images, objects, text and performance alongside archaeological and archival methods in order to reimagine the site as a regenerative pirate spaceship and to reclaim Brutalist architecture as an alien other (or xeno).



Gareth has previously taught at a number of universities across the UK including at Birmingham City University where he was Course Leader for BA Art and Design, and the Royal College of Art. He is also the External Examiner for MA Illustration at Kingston University.

Gareth is currently working on a cross-university research project with colleagues from Kingston University and the Royal College of Art in response to Bigbury Camp in Canterbury, Kent. In March 2025, Leah Fusco, Mireille Fauchon and Gareth will present a creative visual exploration of an Iron Age hill fort located in Howfield Wood, Kent. The site was occupied from about 350BC and may have been stormed in the one of the first engagements between the local peoples and the legions of Julius Caesar in 55BC. The exhibition moves between the ancient and contemporary, natural and artificial concepts of light to speculate on the relationship between technology and perception in historic landscapes. This project is the first in an ongoing collaboration as the Documentary Imaging Group (DIG).