Inside Soho Futures Grant at Soho House São Paulo
It’s been a busy time at our Brazilian House, as we showcased Soho Futures Grant projects and welcomed in the mentees to our latest Soho Mentorship programme
Wednesday 18 March By Catherine Jarvie
The arts and creative industries have a reputation for being difficult to access. For underrepresented groups that difficulty is magnified many times again. Soho Futures Grant and Soho Mentorship – which are part of our social impact and sustainability programme House Foundations – were designed to address this by offering support from our Houses and the members of our community to young creatives who might otherwise struggle to find a way into the industry of their choice.
In Brazil, for example, women in particular have historically faced barriers to access and career progression in creative careers. Which is why, in an effort to help improve gender imbalance in those industries, when we took our annual Soho Futures Grant to Soho House São Paulo last year, we opened it to women only for the first time.
That was back in October, when five female creators were selected by a trio of judges (Soho House São Paulo members, brand strategist Ana Kuroki, director, screenwriter, and artist Asaph Luccas, and femtech brand pioneer and founder, Emily Ewell) to receive a one-off grant of £2,000 to help them bring a creative project to life. In addition to the grant itself, our recipients were offered advice and support from select members of the House, and a year’s Soho House membership to help them connect with and grow their networks.
Last week, after four busy and productive months, the five of them presented their projects to members and professional guests at a special showcase that showed just how far they’d come. With projects ranging from new product lines to a rallying cry to bring more Indigenous people into the workforce, it was impressive to see what they’d achieved and the positive social and environmental benefits their projects have the potential to bring.
And the next day, we got to do it all over again when our new batch of Soho Mentorship mentees gathered at the House to meet their mentors for the first time (one of whom, we’re delighted to note, was grant recipient Amanda Dias, see below). While their stories are still to come, read on for a roundup of the completed Soho Futures Grant projects – we can’t wait to see what they all get up to next.
Project: capsule bio-jewellery collection, Nasce de Terra
Born and raised in the north of São Paulo, in a ‘small house built by my grandmother’, visual artist and bio-jewellery designer Amanda Dias combines natural materials with contemporary art to ‘translate ancestral knowledge into adornments with purpose’. In practice, this means beautiful, wearable pieces that are handcrafted from seeds, natural ceramics, and more for her brand Mandinga Biojoias (mandinga is an Afro-Brazilian term for a magical charm, or amulet).
The Soho Futures Grant freed Dias up ‘to create without the urgency of immediate financial return’, she says. ‘It gave me time to research and experiment with new materials, such as clay.’ The result was a capsule bio-jewellery collection, Nasce de Terra (Born from the Earth), that ‘explores the cycle of creation through clay, seeds from Brazilian biomes, and reclaimed textiles’.
Being a recipient of the grant came with other benefits too, including the rapid expansion of Dias’ creative network through access to Soho House São Paulo. ‘I connected with journalists who later interviewed me for TV Cultura, collaborated with a photographer who worked on this project, and met a florist with whom I am now developing a new project,’ Dias says. ‘In a short time, my work gained significant visibility and growth.’
Dias – who also used the grant to host a free workshop that enabled other women to experience bio-jewellery making – is now putting her membership to use by serving as a mentor to one of the new mentees on the House’s Soho Mentorship programme. What goes around, comes around indeed.
Project: digital campaign highlighting the issues facing Brazil’s Indigenous population entry into the workforce.
Did you know that Indigenous people make up just 1% of the workforce across Brazil’s largest companies? Or that of those, a mere 0.1% occupy leadership positions? These are just two of the points Jennyffer Bransford makes in the first of a series of videos created using funding from her Soho Futures Grant that are designed to highlight the unemployment rates among Indigenous communities, and call on Brazilian companies to take action to address it.
It’s a subject close to Bransford’s heart. She is the founder – working alongside her daughter Naiá – of the world’s first digital and social marketing agency established by and for Indigenous women. ‘I believed that with the support of Soho House I could help materialise a theme that Naiá and I had already been raising and discussing with our partners and network, and that Soho House could help amplify this cause,’ she says of why she applied. In purely practical terms, the grant gave her the financial means that ‘helped make the project possible and gave structure to the early stages of the initiative’.
The grant also comes with a year’s membership to Soho House São Paulo. That has led to Bransford joining a WhatsApp group set up by fellow members and she is building virtual connections from there. ‘I enjoy having access to the House. It is different from the environments I am used to and it has been an interesting experience,’ she says. ‘I have built a very positive relationship with the Soho House São Paulo staff, who are always welcoming and attentive.’
Project: Minha Casa, Minha Vida
Glossy interiors and architecture magazines served as the aesthetic touchpoint for Nathalia Rosa’s Soho Futures Grants project, Minha Casa, Minha Vida. Rosa had long been fascinated by the disparity between the perception of ‘home’ as a place of design-led comfort and retreat such magazines represented, in contrast to the primarily functional space that, in her experience, it tends to serve for those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Her plan was to create a series of photographic essays that applied the high-end production values and aesthetics of such magazines to ‘capture the beauty of homes in São Paulo’s peripheries’ that would help shift the perception of such buildings and their inhabitants.
‘Thanks to the grant I was able to invest in equipment to bring these images to a magazine-cover level, while financially compensating the families for having their homes and stories portrayed,’ she says. And it wasn’t just the project her grant enabled. It has opened a professional and creative path for Rosa herself. ‘I’m now finding myself in this career, with the means to present my unique way of seeing the world,’ she says of her burgeoning photographic career.
‘Having access to Soho House has been a reality shift in my life,’ Rosa adds. ‘It has been a transformative experience to be in a space I never imagined I’d frequent. I’m hoping that now, with the visibility of our final work, I'll be able to expand my opportunities for exchange and connection.’
Project: short film, Córnea
‘This project has been part of my life since childhood,’ says Dariely Belke of her short film, Córnea, which ‘explores how blind people perceive and experience the world’. Inspired by her own close relationship with people with visual impairments, it sets out to challenge the prevailing notion within the sighted world that what we see is reality rather than just one (albeit predominant) version of it.
Córnea combines personal testimonies with sensory – almost impressionistic – imagery and sound in a manner that ‘invites the audience to rethink perception and experience other ways of sensing and relating to the world’. Belke plans to submit the film to festivals with an ambition to ‘explore the subject more deeply’ by expanding it into a feature-length documentary. Both of which are now possible, thanks to Soho Futures Grant.
‘Without it, it wouldn’t have been feasible to film the interviews in a professional studio or record the practical effects scenes with a cinema camera,’ she explains. ‘In addition to completing a deeply personal project, I have a new film in my portfolio, which can open up further opportunities in my career.’
The grant continues to bring value in other ways, too. ‘Having a Soho House membership has helped me find a place where I can connect with other people, especially those who work in creative fields,’ she says. ‘I’ve really been enjoying the House and making the most of the space. It’s a place where I feel comfortable and inspired.’
Project: Momotaro capsule collection, video, and launch event
‘In Brazil, there is still a significant gap in products designed specifically for women urban cyclists,’ says Leticia Nakano, a visual artist and founder of inclusive athleisure clothing brand, Momotaro. ‘Through the experience built within our cycling community [she is a cofounder of women cyclists collective Vespas Bike Gang] it became very clear that there is a need for clothing designed for our bodies and for the dynamic routines of women who move through the city in active and multifaceted ways.’
Receiving the grant
allowed Nakano to research and work with new materials to create a capsule collection that combines functionality, comfort, and aesthetics – such as cycling shorts with padding of various densities to ensure cyclists of all sizes and shapes remain comfortable throughout long rides, and ergonomic, cycle-friendly skorts.
And because Momotaro is a movement as much as a clothing line, part of the grant was allocated to create what Nakano calls the ‘Momotaro manifesto film’, which is designed to encourage women onto their bikes and discover the positive impact cycling can have on their lives. It also helped fund a launch event – organised entirely for and by women – that brought over 100 members of the city’s cycling community together.
‘Having access to Soho House has been very important to my creative process,’ says Nakano. ‘It has been meaningful to bring my project into a space that brings together people from different creative fields [and to] share the perspective of the urban woman cyclist within a creative environment, expanding conversations around mobility, design and new ways of experiencing the city’.
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