RED ROOM

Setlamorago Mashilo - Landlords & Trespassers series
 
There is a collective understanding that the land was stolen from the indigenous people who occupied it. This view persists in Africa’s contemporary society, to the extent where it expands to politics and economics.  

Landlords & Trespassers, is engrossed in unraveling the shifting/changing disposition of the land in an urban space. Often [re]interrogating and [re]articulating narratives that resonate individually and collectively about our sense of loss, nostalgia and inherited memories of the land. For Mashilo the idea of civilization is being thought of and unconsciously experienced as if it were maize fields/crops, once planted, takes root and spreads outwards. This cognitive pattern is also partly made sense by referencing the power dynamics through, “Ponyane” (Red billed quelea), a bird native to Sub-Saharan Africa, known for its extensive damage to crops.