Dr Chloe Cassidy

Chloe Cassidy is a design researcher, practitioner and Lecturer in the School of Art & Design at UNSW. Her research explores how relational and protective practices can be embedded within design to empower people and communities to flourish. Working in an expanded field of mental health and design, her transdisciplinary practice integrates somaesthetic and imaginal sensitivities, psychosocial models of care, creativity, growth and transformation through strengths-based approaches to advance a new conception of trauma-integrated design. Central to this work is an interest in how protective and compensatory experiences can be cultivated through empathetic and embodied, meaning-making practices in design, with the view to improve self-awareness and develop the necessary capacities for working in states of uncertainty associated with increasingly complex social conditions. 

Chloe is a recipient of an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship and a member of UNSW’s Big Anxiety Research Centre (BARC) and Society for Somaesthetics, a program of the Center for Cosmopolitan Culture. Her doctoral research advanced a new conception of trauma-integrated design as a relational practice, and defined a Bionian model of practice for designers.

Her collaborative design work is currently integrated into public spaces across several NSW hospitals, as large scale 'collective landscape' murals, co-created with hospital staff and community members. Prior to this, Chloe’s transdisciplinary expertise has informed collaborative projects with the Sydney Children’s Hospitals Foundation and Randwick Children’s Hospital School; Fairfield Multicultural Health Services, STARTTS and Opera Australia Choir Projects; the Exodus Foundation’s Kaleidoscope Art Program; and Rowing Australia’s GrOW program in rehabilitation and juvenile justice settings. Her professional design work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, Rosemount Australian Fashion Week, Hidden: Rookwood Sculpture Walk, solo and group exhibitions in Sydney and Melbourne, as well as in campaigns such as the UNICEF Designers Unite Against AIDS Blue String Appeal, and on public platforms like the International Artists and Climate Change organisation.

This research and professional practice directly inform Chloe’s teaching across integrated and collaborative design programs at bachelor’s, honours and master’s levels in art and design. She supports emerging designers to develop research-led, critically reflective and relational practices that respond thoughtfully to complex social contexts. Her strengths-based pedagogy connects design research and iterative exploration with a strong commitment to ethical practice, empowering students to ask meaningful questions, consider alternative positions and develop contextually responsive designs.