“In my maternal family, stars are stand-ins for currency; celestial bodies are psychic anchors for the self. A lineage braided with a twinned reverence for science and mysticism, for natural phenomena and mathematics, is how it came to be that so many of my cousins and I are writers, filmmakers, explorers, travellers, scientists and surgeons. We’ve been shaped by keen curiosity and a seismic hunger to inhabit the wonders of the universe, an inclination not without its tendency towards melancholy (and madness, admittedly).

Stoep Collective is that baby now, a world-building studio quite literally made for dreaming, imagining and slowing down. As we narrow our attention on the beauty in front of us: a budding tomato plant, a kitten’s paw, the arc of cumulonimbus across the deep-blue sky, the world slows down. Deeper space opens, time becomes ample, realities shift.”