Setlamorago Mashilo was born in Pretoria in 1987. He currently lives and works in Johannesburg. Mashilo Studied art at the Tshwane University of Technology. He works in multidisciplinary ways engaging diema le dika tsa Sepedi, to explore questions and narratives around land in South Africa.

“There is a collective understanding that the land was stolen from the indigenous people(s) 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 unravelling the shifting/changing disposition of the land. 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.” – Setlamorago Mashilo on the collaborative work produced at LL Editions.

In 2014 he was the winner of the inaugural Turbine Art Fair and was awarded the Sylt Emerging Artist Award (TASA).