Mark Nash’s formative work was in film theory and film culture (see Mark Nash, Screen Theory Culture, London: Palgrave, 2007). In the 1980s he began to focus on issues of race, gender and representation. He worked with Isaac Julien on several projects concerning the work of psychiatrist and theorist of decolonization Frantz Fanon. This resulted in a film Frantz Fanon Black Skin White Mask, (1996) and a conference Frantz Fanon Critical Genealogies, NYU (1996).

Mark also has a long-standing interest in art, world, experimental and avant-garde cinema. First, in terms of the way these cinemas connect with debates on the relation of art and politics (which all come back to the dichotomy between notions of revolution conceived in terms of aesthetics, or of politics and ways of encompassing the two). Second in terms of revisions of art historical notions of modernism to include twentieth-century avant-garde cinema. This has led to an interest in the return of the moving image into the gallery and the development of a wide range of contemporary moving image practices on which he has written and lectured quite widely.

As well as establishing the Inspire pathway for minority MA Curating Contemporary Art students, and building up an MPhil and PhD culture, Mark has been particularly concerned with developing relations with curators and academic institutions in Europe and the developing world with a particular focus on resources to research and teach exhibition histories. He was project leader for the RCA element of ‘Museums and Libraries in the Age of Migrations’ a Framework 7-funded collaborative project with six European institutions.