Manyaku Mashilo: in conversation with Folasade Ologundudu Artwork

Everything Is Connected

Light Work Presents: Everything Is Connected, created by Folasade Ologundudu is a podcast that shares the interesting and inspiring stories of artists, thought leaders, and critical thinkers on life, work, and a wide range of cultural and social topics. Through engaging content, Ologundudu seeks to inspire listeners to lead their best lives through the transformative power of art and culture. She dives into ideas on art and society across cultures with a focus on diverse communities worldwide. Guests include artists, curators, entrepreneurs, educators, and creatives who are changing the way we think about the art, creativity, and the world.

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Everything Is Connected

Manyaku Mashilo: in conversation with Folasade Ologundudu

April 29, 2026 • Season 6 • Episode 112

0:00 | 31:29

Manyaku Mashilo began as a drawer—using pencil to mimic texture, memory, and feeling—long before painting became her primary language.

In this episode, visual artist Manyaku Mashilo reflects on her evolution from fashion design into a multidisciplinary practice rooted in painting, mark-making, and storytelling. Her work moves through texture, memory, and color—building intimate, emotional worlds that center Black womanhood, spirituality, and ancestral lineage.

But this isn’t just a conversation about artistic process.

Instead, Manyaku traces the deeper currents beneath her work: memory as a tool for survival, art as a spiritual practice, and the lifelong search for belonging—both within herself and in the communities she builds through her work.

In this episode Manyaku shares:

Her beginnings in fashion design and how drawing became the foundation of her practice
The importance of texture as memory, emotion, and cultural marker
Her work as a tattoo artist and how mark-making extends onto the body
The influence of her grandmothers—one a farmer, the other a spiritual healer—on her practice
Art as a form of ancestral remembrance and spiritual grounding
Navigating identity, suppression, and belonging growing up between rural and urban South Africa
Building new forms of community through art, including queer Black creative networks

At its core, this conversation is about returning—returning to memory, to lineage, to the textures that hold us. Through Manyaku’s reflections, we see how art becomes more than image-making; it becomes a site of healing, a language for the unsaid, and a way to rebuild belonging in a world that often asks us to forget.

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