Gene Bawden is a communication designer, Head of Monash University’s Design Department and Co-director of the XYX Lab.

His research and design practice embraces the confluence of the material, the visual and the spatial, and the narratives of belonging articulated in each. The XYX Lab affords him the opportunity to combine his knowledge of gendered spatial practices and his communication design expertise within collaborative research projects aimed at mitigating gender inequity in Australia’s urban environments. Key to the Lab’s methodologies is the facilitation of Design Thinking processes using bespoke material tools of enquiry. This is an area of investigation that is increasingly part of Gene’s expanding area of material/spatial research and manifests in his teaching through MADA’s design curriculum and the Monash MBA “Design Thinking” unit.