Marta Ajmar is Acting Head of Graduate Studies (History of Design) and leads the Renaissance specialism within the RCA/V&A History of Design and Material Culture, MA programme. She led the research for and co-curated the major Victoria and Albert Museum exhibition At Home in Renaissance Italy (2006). Her research interests lie principally in the material culture of Renaissance and Early Modern Italy and the Mediterranean world. Marta Ajmar has published on the domestic interior, gender, eroticism, sociability, the material culture of childhood and ‘global’ objects. More recently she has been focusing on two broad areas: health and wellbeing and artisanal practices. Her teaching is broadly informed by these research interests.
Marta Ajmar gained her BA in Art History, Literary Studies and Classics at the University of Pavia (Italy), while also studying Chinese (Mandarin) Language and Culture at the University of Milan (ISMEO) and at the Language and Culture University in Beijing (Beijing Yuyan Xueyuan). She trained as an apprentice painting restorer in the Studio Signorelli (Milan).
In 1991 Marta Ajmar came to London to study for an MA in Combined Historical Studies (the Renaissance) and PhD at the Warburg Institute (University of London). Her PhD thesis was founded on the relationship between domesticity, gender and material culture in Renaissance Italy.
Marta Ajmar joined the RCA/V&A History of Design MA Course to set up the Renaissance specialism. Between 2002 and 2006 she directed the collaborative research and exhibition project funded by the Getty Foundation and the AHRC for the major V&A exhibition At Home in Renaissance Italy (2006).