Australian Museum Future Archives Strategy
Sarah Barns, Australian Museum, 2026
Australian Museum 200 Year Strategy
Australian Museum, 2025

Curatorial and experience strategy for the Australian Museum's bicentenary, shaping how the nation's first museum carries two hundred years of collections, Country and community into its next century.

Australian Museum Digital Education Strategy
Sarah Barns, Australian Museum, 2025
Studio ESEM, 2025–ongoing

A consulting offering for local governments and institutions assessing readiness for AI adoption, starting with place, participation and governance rather than procurement and technology.

A Digital Strategy for the NSW Government Architect
Sarah Barns, NSW Government Architect, 2024
Smart Places Open Air
Sarah Barns, Institutional Enablement Lead, Sitelines Media, NSW Smart Places Digital Restart Fund · UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures, 2023–2025

Developed a capability program for NSW local government agencies to support the integration of low-cost air quality sensors into council decision-making frameworks. Supported through the NSW Smart Places Digital Restart Fund and delivered in partnership with the UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures.

An Arts of Creative Renewal
Sarah Barns (Studio ESEM), Western Sydney University, with HASSELL, 2022–2023

Creative renewal strategy for Western Sydney University's Hawkesbury campus, developed with HASSELL as lead consultant. A framework for how arts and cultural programming can carry the renewal of a campus and its surrounding landscape.

Maitland Gaol Digital Interpretation Strategy
Maitland City Council, with GML Heritage, 2022

Digital interpretation strategy for one of Australia's oldest convict gaols, with GML Heritage, 150 years of incarceration history told through immersive, sensory experiences that humanise individual stories and confront colonial spatial justice without moralising.

Parramatta Female Factory Precinct Interpretation Strategy
Sydney Living Museums, with Left Bank Co, 2022

Interpretation and storytelling strategy for the Female Factory Precinct Vision with Sydney Living Museums, a narrative framework for one of Australia's most significant colonial women's history sites.

The South Australian Arts Plan 2019–2024
Sarah Barns, Tony Grybowski & Graham Gerashe, with Kath Deyell and Claire Scobie, Government of South Australia, 2019

Part of a core consultancy collaborative contracted by the SA Premier to deliver a five year Arts Plan for the SA Government, and advising on collections policy and governance for the state's cultural institutions. Included leading Town Hall consultation sessions across the SA arts sector and extensive industry sector engagement.

Botany Wetlands Heritage Walk Design Concepts
Sarah Barns & Michael Killalea (Esem Projects), Sydney Airport Corporation, 2018

Heritage walk design concepts for the Botany Wetlands.

Climate Adapted People Shelters
UTS · Western Sydney University · NSW Office of Environment and Heritage, 2018

Advice on digital innovation practices for bus shelter designs, as part of the Climate Adapted People Shelters (CAPS) innovation and design program.

Sydney Metro Northwest Places
Sydney Metro Northwest Places · Arup · Transport NSW, 2018–2022

From a 2018 activation strategy along the metro corridor to a business case for a meanwhile-housing and circular economy innovation precinct, signed off by Landcom for a $60m start-up program with cross-agency delivery.

A Data Strategy for Celestino Sydney Science Park
Sarah Barns, Celestino, 2017
CSIRO Urban Living Labs
CSIRO · Data61 · Celestino, 2017–2018

Established the Urban Living Labs Innovation Precinct Strategy and Partnership Framework with CSIRO Data61 and the $5bn Sydney Science Park, a research-led framework carrying national science expertise into built-environment outcomes.

Digital Typologies for the Connected Campus: A Digital Placemaking Strategy for UNSW
Sarah Barns & Michael Killalea, University of New South Wales, 2017
T1/T2 Public Art Masterplan
Sarah Barns & Michael Killalea (Esem Projects), Sydney Airport Corporation, with HASSELL, 2017–2019

Art curation and placemaking strategy for the T1/T2 Public Domain Masterplan, a typology of public art experiences and a curatorial governance structure to carry Sydney's cultural identity through a decade of terminal redevelopment.

UNSW Digital Placemaking Strategy
University of NSW · Place Partners, 2017

Digital Typologies for the Connected Campus, a digital placemaking strategy guiding how technologies thread through UNSW's campus-wide masterplan, co-authored with Michael Killalea.

White Bay Innovation Strategy: Smart City Principles
Sarah Barns, Urban Growth NSW, with SGS Economics and Terroir Architecture, 2017
White Bay Innovation District Strategy
Urban Growth NSW · SGS Economics · Terroir, 2016–2017

Smart city principles and digital masterplan for the White Bay innovation precinct, advising Urban Growth NSW through the period of its negotiations with Google over the district's future.

A Digital, Design and Curatorial Strategy for Rutherford’s Den
Sarah Barns & Michael Killalea, Arts Centre of Christchurch, 2015
Creative Innovation Strategy
Sarah Barns, Australia Council for the Arts, 2015

The first national creative industries strategy for the Australia Council for the Arts.

An integrated online and mobile strategy for the ABC
Sarah Barns, ABC Online Executive, 2013
Planning for digital transformation at the national broadcaster
Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 2013

Working with the head of Digital and the ABC's Executive Team and then Managing Director Mark Scott I led the development of an organisation-wide digital strategy for the national broadcaster. This work provided a framework for strategic planning and consultation towards genre-based programming, in response to an era increasingly defined not by media formats but by platform-based experiences.

SMART Sydney: Role of agent-based modelling for transport planning
Sarah Barns, Arup, 2012

Enquiries about strategy, advisory or research partnerships: sarah@studioesem.com