Marcus is one of New Zealand’s most prolific designers, having produced over 500 theatre designs and installation artworks since 2005. He has 22 awards spanning visual art and design, specifically in the areas of theatre, fine arts, architecture, and museum design. In 2007 he designed Heat, the world’s first entirely zero-emissions piece of touring theatre, for which he had to construct his own led fittings and design and build a touring wind and solar power supply. In 2009 he premiered Nag, a self-powered artist studio entirely constructed from recycled and found materials where the artists have to pedal while working, spinning recycled washing machine motors that generate all the power they need. Nag has since had 34 gallery and festival seasons and is still touring, with three arts festival bookings in 2023. In 2015 four of his design and installation works were included in the inaugural New Zealand New Performance festival in New York, and in 2016 he created a new commissioned work (Nests) for the NZ Festival. In 2017 he completed a permanent interactive artwork powered by waves, Wash, for the Tauranga City Council, and in 2019 he launched an installation of his lightbox works, 101 Rants, which, with the help of twenty-five commissioned writers, transformed three floors of the public spaces of BATS Theatre for 101 days. In 2020 he had new works premiering in the Frankfurt Luminale, Vivid Sydney, and Light Nelson, all of which were cancelled due to Covid. Yay Covid! In 2021 he worked in theatre and fine arts and created new works with 5ever Press, Borderline Arts Collective, Trick of the Light, Circa Theatre, and The Conch. Marcus also won an inaugural NZ Arts Foundation Behind the Limelight award in July 2021, which recognises artists whose work supports other artists, and then had a daughter in late 2021, which has slowed him down some. In 2023 he has been building a new studio out of found materials in Houghton Bay, Wellington, and creating new work with Footnote dance (Wellington) and Mascall dance (Vancouver) and 5ever Books. He originally worked as a copywriter, so many of the things he makes tend to revolve around the intersection of light and text. Marcus has a graduate degree in English Literature and Philosophy that he’s philosophical about, and his interests include finding sneaky ways to keep his carbon footprint low, growing vegetables, building bicycles, and reading things worth reading.
