Drawn to the power of visual storytelling as a tool for both personal expression and cultural critique. João’s work explores how identity, gender, and power are seen and felt - often through blending text and image to make complex narratives emotionally accessible. With a perspective shaped by neurodivergence, heritage and the contradictions within contemporary visual culture, she aims to bring nuance and empathy into every visual space she contributes to. Working on projects that shift perspectives, engage audiences, and expand what visual culture can do.

For a long time, I’ve been confused as to why the men in my life often felt like the source of conflict rather than the comfort. I saw love from men intrinsically entangled with distance, silence and emotional uncertainty. I started “Patchwork”, to try and fill in all the answers to the questions I felt I could never ask them directly. Through a collaborative photographic practice with male subjects I became desperate to find the vulnerability and truth beneath these actions. My work is rooted in a hunger to understand what shaped them, and whether that understanding could help me heal from my own experiences. The resulting images stand as testimony to a vulnerable exchange of information between myself and the sitter. The absence of explicit wording within the work is a deliberate departure from my usual practice, creating space for ambiguity and restraint. This silence is intentional, allowing the viewer to bring their own experiences into the work, projecting personal histories onto the imagery, and in doing so, completing the narrative in ways that remain unresolved and open-ended.