Marta Velasco Velasco is driven by narrative and materiality, working within the fields of art direction, set design and textile design.
Her works are explorations into cultural traditions, colonial history and postcolonial traces. Looking at the tension between the object and the narrative intent, her work uses textiles as communication artifacts. Informed by broad research into her subjects, she plays with fact, fiction and storytelling to create new ways of representing fascinating stories.
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Project: Pulau Banda
Pulau Banda is a project by Marta Velasco Velasco from the Royal College of Arts. She has always been fascinated by colonial history, cultural traditions and postcolonial traces.
A conversation with her brother about African Wax print and its Dutch-Indonesian origins, led to them discussing the history of nutmeg, the once highly valuable spice originating from the islands of Pulau Banda.
She uses textiles, photography and set design to share stories of colonialism and their aftermath with a goal of awakening people’s curiosity about colonial history and sparking a debate about its representations.