We are pleased to welcome Tumelo Mosaka as FSA’s Scholar-in-Residence in Charleston, South Carolina, this fall (October–November 2025). Mosaka currently serves as the Mellon Arts Project Director for the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University and is also a noted independent curator. Mosaka’s residency marks something of a return to Charleston; in 2001 and 2002, he co-curated the public art programs for the Spoleto Festival USA’s acclaimed Evoking History series: Listening Across Cultures and Communities, and The Memory of Water. His most recently curated exhibition, Between Distance and Desire: African Diasporic Perspectives (which includes the work of former FSA artist Nyugen E. Smith) is on view at the Soloviev Foundation in New York City, through December 22, 2025. He is also co-editor of the forthcoming book, Black Curators Matter: Conversations on Art and Institutional Change.

Mosaka, who was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, is deeply committed to advancing new possibilities for contemporary art and the ways in which it can communicate, engage with, and respond to everyday realities as well as larger historical, civic, and social concerns. His projects over the last two decades have explored a range of global and transnational artistic practices from Africa, the Caribbean, North America, and South America. Mosaka’s curatorial approach has consistently emphasized the importance of art as knowledge production and explored the alignment of exhibitions with public programming in order to create platforms for community-building. As he revisits the arts landscape in Charleston, Mosaka intends to investigate the influence of Sea Islands culture on Black American expressionism.