Tess Martin is an award-winning filmmaker/visual artist based in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Her work is informed by hand-made animation techniques and their potential to explore our vulnerability in relation to nature, the onslaught of time and the precariousness of memory. She brings her perspective as someone who was raised between cultures to explore themes of belonging, identity and connection.

Many of her projects exist simultaneously as films and installations, often incorporating sculptural elements and individually experienced soundtracks to create intimate durational encounters. She often works with tactile materials such as paper cutouts, paint, ink, sand, and found objects, pushing the boundaries between animation and contemporary art.

Some of her notable short films include Still Life with Woman, Tea, and Letter, Dear Rosa, 1976: Search For Life, and her most recent film How, Now, House?  Her projects often combine experimental storytelling with innovative animation techniques.  She has directed and created multiple music videos using techniques ranging from paper cut-out stop-motion animation to ink painting on glass.. In addition to her artistic practice, Martin has curated animation programs, taught at universities in the U.S. and the Netherlands, and ran the “Manifest Animation Show & Tell” series in Rotterdam for several years. She is frequently invited to speak about her work exploring the nature of time and her path as a working artist. Her work has been widely presented internationally in both film and exhibition contexts, including festivals, museums, and artist residencies across Europe, North America, and Asia.

Speaking Topics

Time, Memory, and the Handmade Image

Tess explores her lifelong investigation into how handmade animation — cut paper, paint, sand, ink — can express what digital tools cannot: the texture of memory, the weight of time, and the layers of human experience embedded in objects and places. A talk for artists, educators, and anyone curious about the relationship between process and meaning.

How Now, House? — The Many Lives of a Place

Drawing on her award-winning short film that traces the overlapping human stories within a single Rotterdam house across generations, Tess discusses how animation can make visible the invisible histories that surround us — and why remembering whose stories came before us matters deeply in an age of erasure.

Experimental Animation — Blurring the Boundary Between Art and Film

Tess has spent her career working at the intersection of experimental film, gallery art, and animation. In this talk she explores what it means to make work that refuses easy categorization — how experimental animation can reach audiences through galleries, festivals, installations, and public spaces simultaneously, and why that flexibility is one of its greatest strengths.