Over the past year, I’ve turned to Masego Morgan’s videos for both inspiration and escape. On Tiktok and Instagram, the sustainability advocate and media creator chronicles outdoor adventures and daily life in suburban South Africa, along with outfit videos and tips for styling thrifted clothes. My conversation with Masego felt joyful and meandering, touching on fashion industry labor practices, food, solo hiking, and many things in between. I hope you enjoy.
Amber Officer-Narvasa: What's an early lesson you learned from the land?
Masego Morgan: I went to a [Rudolf] Steiner school for kindergarten, and at the school that I went to, there was loads of pine trees. We used to be able to eat the pine nuts, and use the rocks to open them. That taught me that food doesn't just come in the supermarket. At that time, my parents hadn't built a vegetable garden yet. So that was the first lesson that food is actually grown out in nature, and that it can be free, you know?
AON: How would you describe your work right now?
MM: I have work that I do for a fashion brand called Good Good Good. And I'm helping them become more sustainable and low-impact in their practices. But I think that what I want my life work to be is helping people become more low-impact and doing that myself, and then also telling stories in different mediums. So I guess that's how I would describe [my work].
AON: What’s the relationship that you hope people will start to build with fashion in an age of widespread exploitation and labor issues within the fashion industry?
MM: So I think that for me, sustainable fashion isn't something that we have yet accomplished. Because we live in a society where sustainability is almost non-existent. And that's like a foundation of colonialism and ingrained in so many of us. But I want people to wear things that make them feel happy, no matter what that is. And to have relationships with their clothes, or change the relationship they have with their clothes if it's a toxic one.
I love every item of clothing I have. I love the way they make me feel, and the ways I can express myself through them. And I wish that for everybody. The more you pay attention to the clothes that make you feel good, the more sometimes people realize that it's the [clothing items] that have a story behind them. So even thrifting, it is like a story. You maybe try this thing on that you didn't think was gonna look good, but then ended up being like, your favorite thing. I don't think that fast fashion, the model that it is currently is good. But I also don't want to judge people so much for buying fast fashion, because I don't know their circumstances.
AON: That's something I've struggled with when thinking about sustainable fashion. A lot of slow fashion brands, the pieces are expensive. And of course, that's for a reason, because it's reflecting the amount of labor that's gone into it. But also, it means these brands that are sustainable and more intentional with their labor practices are not accessible for a lot of people. Do you have any thoughts just about how to make sustainable fashion more accessible to folks?
MM: I agree. I think the price is definitely a deterrent for most people. And that's why, the way that I shop is I thrift mainly from charity stores in South Africa. Because you can have the curated [thrift] stores that are more expensive and they're basically the same price as buying new clothes. And then you have charity stores that are kind of like your Goodwill.
With slow fashion brands, my hope is that people's living wages will go up to a point where a slow fashion brand doesn't seem as expensive as before. That is really the only option [and] hopefully, the slow fashion brand isn't making an exorbitant profit on the clothes.
But the other methods of slow fashion, which are thrifting, and making your own clothes, mending and swapping and all of that stuff, those are things that, if you're from a low income household, that's kind of what you did anyway. I think it's more about destigmatizing those things.
AON: What's been inspiring you lately?
MM: I am busy studying and writing so I'm reading lots of journals and articles. Which has been like a weird situation because academia is so gatekept by jargon. But it has been pretty inspiring to read some of the journal [articles], I finished one called "Ubuntu, Ukama, and the Healing Nature of Self and Society," by Leslie Grant.
Ubuntu is this word in Xhosa, and it means the people, but also like the support system of communities, thinking about our future generations but also our past. And Ukama is a Shona word, which means to look at things holistically. It's about the connection between nature, people, and animals and everything [else]. And so this paper was talking about how Ubuntu and Ukama are these concepts that are indigenous, that can be used within education to help students think about each other, but also [about] being more environmentally friendly. There were some people who thought that Ubuntu just meant “about the people.” And Leslie Grant is trying to talk about how Ubuntu is actually also about nature, because without nature, people cannot survive. So, yeah, that was really inspiring.
So that's just been my question for this year and this [graduate] degree, like, what have we lost that we do not know we have lost? I think about these things, like Ubuntu for example, an indigenous way of philosophy that has survived colonialism and survived the erasure of white supremacy. I think we're gonna have to create a sustainable world for the current situation that we're in, but there's so much knowledge we've lost, that could have helped, and we don't even know about it.
AON: What are some ways we can collectively remember what's been lost through colonialism? Are there certain practices or technologies of remembering that you're interested in?
MM: So Ubuntu and ukama, the philosophies, I definitely think are things that we should apply to the way that we live. And then looking into indigenous plants in the area that you live in. I think that we need to be more in tune with with our intuition [and] listening to ourselves. Because that's your ancestors speaking to you oftentimes, and that is a way of connecting. And then for me, [one] thing is also fermentation. Like, any forms of fermentation, that's a practice that we as people have been doing for centuries. And so I think that's quite powerful, having that practice still.
AON: Are there any local plants that you've been interested in lately, or that you've been building a relationship with?
MM: Aloe, for sure. There's this one that grows in my garden that I use, it's really good for soothing. But also, if you cut away the green, then it's just the flesh and that kind of tastes like nothing. But then I'll use it with soy sauce and eat it like sashimi. Like [drawing from] both my Japanese ancestors and South African ones [laughs].
I don't really use Impepho, because it's something you need to ask the ancestors before you do. I mean, I have it and I grow it. But the one time I picked it without asking and then I burnt it, I had a headache for a week [laughs].
And then there's this fruit called kei apple. And that is just really yummy to eat by itself, but also I make jam with it.
AON: Could share your thoughts on taking solo hiking trips, and how they've shaped your relationship with the land?
MM: [Hiking] does make me feel like centered, but it has also taught me that nature and the land is always around us, we're on it all the time. And that I need to take feelings that I have there back into my daily life and practice.
I think what it's taught me is that you can connect to yourself wherever but it's sometimes good to be in spaces completely alone. Because sometimes we feel watched or judged or perceived, and [being] somewhere that's not happening—well this time I ran across some baboons, I was kind of judged by them [laughs].
AON: Are there any people you wanted to shout out?
MM: For practices around food I would [recommend] Zayaan Khan. Especially if you want to know more about indigenous to South Africa foods, but she also has other foods and a lot of fermentation practices. In terms of fashion, I like to follow Dominique Drakeford and Aja Barber, they both talk about decolonization and sustainable fashion. Also my best friend Stella [Hertantyo].
Follow Masego on Tiktok, Instagram, and the CNCS blog.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
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