Colonial Memory Is Paper Thin examined the historical erasure embedded in the landscape of the Jardins do Palácio de Cristal and in the legacy of the 1934 Portuguese Colonial Exhibition. The research analysed how missing documents, decontextualised photographs, and architectural forms silence histories of extraction, displacement, and the exhibition of African subjects in Portugal. By combining cartography, textiles, archival fragments, and sonic layers, the project developed a counter-cartography: a critical tapestry that refuses the softening of colonial memory and reinscribes omitted lives. The artist collaborated with Caterina Araya (researcher in memory and the right to the city) and Pedro Gomes (visual artist whose practice bridges art and social justice).

Simphiwe Mlambo is an interdisciplinary artist and architectural researcher whose work centres on the relationship between space, memory, and Black geographies. Their practice engages with questions of land, borders, and spatial imaginaries. Holding an M.Arch (Distinction) from the Graduate School of Architecture (GSA), Johannesburg, Mlambo has investigated forms of resistance across African cities and their diasporas through research, artistic production, teaching, and curatorial work. As a teaching assistant at the GSA, their practice extends beyond academia, contributing to contemporary artistic practices and critical spatial discourse. Recognised as one of Scape Magazine’s “100 Voices in Design” (2024), they participated in the Goethe-Institut Johannesburg’s Emerging Practice (EP2) programme (2024) and Power Talks (2021). In 2023, they collaborated on the exhibition Ecospheres at the Johannesburg Contemporary Art Foundation. At the RGC Global Blackness Summer School (2022), they presented a sonic cartography of their dissertation in the panel “Geographies of Care” with Tina Campt. They worked with the WAI Think Tank on the project From Landgrab to Landback (2023) and are currently affiliated with the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO), researching spatial transformations. In 2024, they joined the Young Black Academics Research Collective.

Simphiwe Mlambo’s residency took place within the framework of the InResidence programme, Ágora – Cultura e Desporto, E.M.