Kopano Mashike is not just an artist, she’s a storyteller, actor, and cultural worker, known for her ability to gather people around stories that confront, uplift, and provoke.

Born into privilege but moved by proximity, Kopano arrived in Cape Town at the height of the 2024 floods, a time of devastation for many in the townships. What she witnessed didn’t inspire pity. It sparked purpose. This solo exhibition, The City of Shacks, is a reckoning, honouring the mothers building homes from tin, the fathers hammering into borrowed land, and the children who learn too early that even walls can disappear.