Facts and Fabulations: Bringing Together Archives,
Collaboration, and Technology

Presenter:
Marcos Martins (Brazil)

Date + Time:
Tuesday, 22 September 1 – 2pm

Location:
WORLDART Gallery

Price:
R50 per person (40 pax) Book on Quicket

This lecture will present the conceptual, creative, technological, and pedagogical processes behind the exhibition Facts and Fabulations, as well as visitors’ responses to it. Shown at the UWC Centre for Humanities Research in Cape Town from April to July 2026, the exhibition drew largely on archival material from the University of the Western Cape – Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Archives, combining printed photographs with audio recordings and augmented reality installations.

Rather than following a predefined theme, curator Marcos Martins selected images for their capacity
to open indeterminate fields of interpretation and to trigger fabulations. Through workshops with UWC students, participants were invited to fabulate freely on selected images before being presented with related archival documents, allowing them to contrast their interpretations with historical records. This material—photographs, documents, newspaper clippings, posters, and advertisements—was later used to produce the augmented reality components of the exhibition related to printed images and audio recordings of the students’ responses. Positioned against the rapid
consumption of images and information, the exhibition created an experience in which facts and fabulations intertwined, slowing perception and layering processes of learning, while reflecting on how truth emerges through expanded temporal and interpretive space.

Marcos Martins
Brazilian video, graphic, and interaction designer Marcos Martins is a tenured professor at the Superior School of Design (ESDI) at the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), Brazil. He has been a visiting scholar at the Centre for Humanities Research (CHR) at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) since 2024. In 2025, he received a
Digital Curatorial Fellowship from the New Archival Visions Programme to develop his curatorial project Facts and Fabulations, shown 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). His recent video productions with South African composer Philip Miller include
Tu+Tu=Freedom (2021); eleven music 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 creative practice, Martins explores intersections between design, art, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and education to address the complex and unstable conditions posed by technological development.