Prof. Marcos Martins

New Archival Visions Digital Curatorial Fellow

ideo, graphic, and interaction designer Marcos Martins has been a visiting scholar at UWC since 2024. He participates in seminars, lectures, and research groups, and works with faculty to develop a South–South collaboration with the Superior School of Design (ESDI), University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), Brazil.

In 2025, he received a Digital Curatorial Fellowship from the New Archival Visions Programme for Facts and Fabulations, based on research at the UWC–Robben Island–Mayibuye Archives, culminating in an exhibition at CHR’s Iyatsiba Lab Gallery (April–July 2026).

Martins completed postdoctoral research at Princeton University in 2018, tracing genealogical links between historical media systems and today’s social media interfaces. He co-authored Everyday Acts of Design: Learning in a Time of Emergency (Bloomsbury, 2022). Recent collaborations with South African composer Philip Miller include Tu+Tu=Freedom (2021), films inspired by Reuben T. Caluza for The B-Side (Market Theatre, 2023), typographic motion design for Nkoli: The Vogue Opera (Market Theatre, 2023), and Masiphumelele Visits Anne Frank (Finding Beauty, Anne Frank House, 2024).

Through his teaching, research, and artistic practice, Martins explores intersections between design, art, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and education to address challenging and unstable social conditions.