From 17 to 22 November 2025, the Creativity for Social Change Hub together with the Moleskine Foundation, in collaboration with NIROX, hosted 11 Creativity Pioneers, local and international cultural and creative organisations, for 5 days of workshops, discussions and exchanges on creativity for social change. This programme culminated in the public event, Joburg Revival, on Friday 21 November 2025 in partnership with the Creativity Pioneer’s Fund, Anglo American Foundation, Jozi My Jozi and Maharishi Institute.
Throughout history creative and cultural spaces have offered critical interventions and spaces where young people could constructively channel and harness their anger and despair. Creativity and culture have enabled young people to take a leap of imagination in impossible times. The Joburg Revival served as a reminder that creativity and culture in a vast and storied city like Johannesburg are not just sweet sentiments but engines of life.
The Joburg Revival came at an important moment as the city prepared to host the G20 and as it moved toward next year’s hotly contested local municipality elections. It offered a timely opportunity to think deeply about the reparative and generative capacity of creativity and culture not only for a city like Johannesburg but for the world at large.
In this first edition of the Joburg Revival, local Creativity Pioneers and others from cities such as Lagos, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Bogota and New York City shared their work and its reparative and generative qualities. These Pioneers are filmmakers, poets, musicians, writers and artists who merge heart and mind, combine poetry and pragmatism and use imagination to drive impact.
Under the theme “the Living Language of Repair,” the Joburg Revival created a space where the Creativity Pioneers brought forward their abundant cultural imagination, vision and work through panel discussions and the following breakaway workshops:
- Social Consciousness and Connection Through Film by Refiloe Chiloane, Sunshine Cinema (South Africa)
- The Language Between Us by Titelope Sonuga, Lagos International Poetry Festival (Nigeria)
- Invisible Art: A Field Study on Black Literary Organisations by Lisa Willis, Cave Canem (USA)
- Food from the Block – Democratic Cities and Food Scaping by Goncalo Folgado, Locals Approach (Portugal)
The workshops were followed by a conversation on the role of philanthropy in reviving cities, between Michael Mapstone, CEO of the Anglo American Foundation, Adama Sanneh, CEO of the Moleskine Foundation and Lwando Xaso, director of the Creativity for Social Change Hub.
The closing panel under the theme “The Right to Imagination and the Right to the City” featured:
- Melusi Mhlungu – Creative Director, Jozi My Jozi
- Noluthando Mdayi – Co-CEO, Makers Valley
- Musawenkosi Cwabe – Lawyer and Legal Journalist, SERI
- Thomas Coggins – Senior Lecturer and Researcher, Wits
Moderated by journalist Dan Corder.
“The Anglo American Foundation and the Moleskine Foundation share a deep belief that creativity is one of the strongest tools young people have to understand their world and influence it. Hosting this gathering at 44 Main feels significant because the building now reflects the energy and possibility of youth. It is becoming a space where ideas grow, where imagination has room to breathe and where young people can lead with confidence.” – Michael Mapstone, CEO, Anglo American Foundation.