[two_third]‘Seasonal, sustainable Colourise media art events have breathed the Briz cultural, social, political landscape since 1988. The venerable, related and relevant Indigenous gathering spirit is organic and fluid without fear of flying or failing. Karen Batten has designed, collaborated, participated with Colourise Festival since 2005.’ Christine Peacock 

Steph Vajda‘I had the good fortune of first working with Karen in 2009, in Blackall and Longreach as part of the Creative Pathways in the Central West program by SpeakOut. Karen’s role was to design and facilitate graphic design and marketing workshops with young people for the Shockwave Festival while I was managing the program and producing the festival. I have continued to work with Karen on various projects since then, valuing highly her considered approaches to collaborative, inclusive design, production and general project organising. More recently in 2015 we have collaborated to produce Rhizome: The September Edition, a year round program of skill sharing, networking and training for Brisbane’s creative sector, presented by Brisbane City Council. Without hesitation I would (and have) recommended Karen to anyone interested in more collaborative, participatory and community-based approaches to communications, marketing and design.’ Steph Vajda

‘I employed Karen (around 2000) for over 2 years. In this time I found her to be a designer of innovative and good quality work, always on time, and liaised well with my clients – and from such a nice fun person to work with! It is my loss that she returned to Australia (I was very sorry to see her go), and I have no reserve in recommending her to any of her potential clients.’
Julien Boston @ Boston Graphics (U.K.)
[/two_third][one_third_last]Lenine Bourke looking at camera‘Working with Karen Batten as a designer and collaborative artists is a really important professional exchange for me. Karen uses a broad range of consultative and collaborative methods to create work, this is the perfect kind of engagement I needs from artists and designers who I work with. Whenever I have a problem, a big idea, a very short time frame and limited resources to make something amazing happen it is always Karen that I call. Each time Karen has been responsive, respectful and honest in what we can achieve with what time and resources we have available to us. However Karen has never asked us to scale back an idea, rather been very supportive to find a way to handle this idea and meet the need. Karen is my first choice in designer.’
Lenine Bourke

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