We will welcome our first Writer’s Room guest for 2025, curator, publisher-editorial features manager, researcher and writer, João Vilela Geraldo, who was born in Portugal, but was lucky enough to have parents who dreamed big and could travel. That nomadic beginning was, and still is, one of his trademarks. He managed portfolios and executive customers for the world’s biggest airline. He began handling logistics and production for some of the most prestigious photographers in the world. Moving quickly, he curated his first exhibition and launched publishing projects with illustrators, designers, architects and other creative types. He continues to travel the globe with the same curiosity and impatience.

During his month-long residency, Geraldo will focus on Writing Home: South Africans abroad: Memory and Missing. The research will focus on the last decades’ literary work of South Africans abroad, and what/whom they missed the most while away from the country, and their writings on it.

The idea is to delve deep in the concept of memory, both fact and fiction, of the country while ‘seeing’ and perceiving it from abroad.