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

Presenter:
Marcos Martins

Date + Time:
Wednesday, 16 September 1 – 2pm

Location:
WORLDART Gallery

Price:
R50 per person (40 pax)

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.