Karma Barnes

Karma Barnes’s creative practise encompasses installation art, participatory practices, social impact, community arts and street art. Engagement and participation are key factors in her work and drawing large numbers of people to collaborate on colossal scale projects is her passion.

Her collaborative project Imagine the Land is about cultivating relationships between people, art and nature through the use of participatory art practices, public and community art presentations. The project has engaged over 10,000 people in collaborative art-making within public art exhibitions, workshops and public arts events to produce large scale site-specific installations. Works have included The MACRO Asilo Museum of Contemporary Art Rome (2019), Te Uru – West Auckland Regional Gallery (NZ 2016, 14), YWCA National Child Protection Launch (NSW, 2016), The Bhoomi Festival (New Delhi, 2015), The Wallace Gallery (NZ 2012), The Wellington Museum of Land & Sea (NZ, 2011) and The Villa de Leyva Museum (Colombia, 2010).

Karma is a professionally registered Art Therapist. She has extensive experience working with a range of populations including youth, women’s groups, Indigenous and cultural groups and special needs. Karma has worked with peek community social and health organisations throughout the Northern Rivers. She has been directing the <In.scribe> Youth Arts Mentoring Project since 2013. The project has produced public artworks across the Northern Rivers including the regions largest youth artwork; an 80-meter mural. The project has also delivered projects with NGO’s and communities in the Northern Territory, Timor Leste and India.