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Judith Martinez Estrada

Judith Martinez Estrada

PhD Candidate
Arts, Design & Architecture
School of the Arts & Media

Email: judith.martinez@unsw.edu.au

Supervisors: George Kouvaros, Izabela Pluta

Judith Martinez Estrada is an artist, designer and PhD candidate. Judith holds a Master of Philosophy in Fine Arts and a Bachelor of Design, both from UNSW.

Judith has over 25 years’ experience as a graphic designer and has been an exhibiting artist since 2013. Her artwork explores collective and historical memory and the retelling of narratives though the use and interpretation of documents, images and artefacts found in the archive.

Judith was awarded a State Library of Victoria creative fellowship in 2019/20. She has been artist in residence at Alfred University in New York, Cicada Press in Sydney, Baldessin Press in Melbourne, and Megalo Print Studio in Canberra. Judith has had exhibitions in public and private galleries, museums, art fairs and cultural institutions both in Australia and in Spain. She has been a finalist in The Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award and The Megalo International Print Prize, highly commended in The Olive Cotton Award, and awarded the accésit prize for El Premio Internacional de Arte Gráfica Jesus Nuñez, La Coruña, Spain.

As a graphic designer Judith has worked in the private, government and non-for-profit sectors. She has worked on the design, branding and publications for Sydney based festivals and events, site-specific place-making, interpretive and way-finding projects, and print based resources for CALD and community organisations. Currently, Judith is a sessional academic at UNSW Art & Design where she teaches into the Bachelor of Design.

Judith’s research asks how trans-generational memory in conjunction with archival enquiry can assist in forming new and revised narratives, and how these may be read as parallel and overlapping accounts identifying and rectifying voids in existing records. Through the creation of visual narratives using photography, printmaking, graphic design, and site-specific installations, her creative practice focuses on the creation of counter archives to interpret and retell the biographies of those on the periphery of history.

PhD creative outputs

  • 2024. ‘Volver/The Return’. PhotoAccess, Canberra, Australia. Photography, video, object, and textiles exhibition.
  • 2023. The Memory Threshold. L’Etno Museum, Valencia, Spain. Site specific Installation.
  • 2023. ‘Memory Flags — an Impossible Typology’. ‘Tracing the Rupture’ group exhibition. Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, Katoomba, Australia. 26 Screen-prints and textile installation.
  • 2022. Semana Profesional de Arte, Oviedo, Spain. ‘The Silent Parade II’. Site-specific installation. Antigua Fabrica de Armas de la Vega.

Prizes, fellowships, and grants

  • 2023. Spanish Ministry of Culture ‘Programa Hispanex’ grant. Awarded for ‘La Expedición/The Expedition’ creative outputs.
  • 2022. Australian Feminist Studies ‘Back to the Archive’ grant. Awarded for archival research at the Regional Archive of Asturias, Spain, on the female tobacco factory workers in Gijon, Spain, used in Chapter one of PhD thesis.
  • 2022. Megalo Print Studio, Canberra. Artist residency. Awarded to create a series of 26, four-colour screen-prints (edition of five) for ‘Memory Flags — an Impossible Typology’.
  • 2022. Meroogal Women’s Art Prize. Finalist.
  • 2023 and 2021. The Olive Cotton Award. Highly Commended (2021) Finalist (2023).
  • 2023 and 2021. Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award. Finalist.

Publications, lectures, and conference presentations

  • 2023. Handbook of Research on the Relationship Between Autobiographical Memory and Photography, IGI Global. Chapter: ‘The Inland Lighthouse’.
  • 2023. Vol. 46 Núm. 1 (2023): ‘Imágenes para la ciencia: la divulgación científica a través del audiovisual. Historia, perspectiva y futuro’. Journal article: ‘La técnica del fotograma sobre los objetos históricos como fuente de documentación y su presentación como obra artística’. Co-authored with Prof. Juan García Crego, Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
  • 2023. UNSW, Guest lecture, Master Class: ‘The Making of Modern Spain’. ARTS 3576.
  • 2022. Confoco International Photography Conference. Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain. Invited to deliver presentation on PhD research and creative outputs.
  • 2022. IV Congreso Internacional Sobre Perpetradores de Violencias de Masas. Universitat de València, Valencia, Spain. Invited to deliver presentation on PhD research and creative outputs.
  • 2022. Impact International Printmaking Conference. UWE Bristol, UK. (Online Presentation).
  • 2021. CoVA GRADUATE ACADEMY. Memory Conference. University of Melbourne, Australia. (Online Presentation).
  • 2021. Memory Studies Association Conference, Warsaw, Poland. (Online Presentation).

Previous research degree

  • Master of Philosophy. UNSW, Art & Design. 2020. Thesis: The Displacement of Ghosts. Memory, Migration and Trauma in Non-linear Narratives.