Abstract
To reach the farm in Sawoti that previously belonged to the Sivpersad family one must be prepared for a 20-minute drive down a gravel road winding between hills and valleys, past a temple and over a narrow path that runs through the river. When I inquired about the formal name of the river, members of my family could not provide a proper name for it. One of my uncles speculates that it may be a branch of the Ncazuka River. However, in this study I refer to it as the Sawoti river, as this is the name given to it by members of my family. Sawoti is regarded as a place of peace by my family; indeed, I will argue, for many generations it was seen as ‘a place away’ in contrast to the strife of city life. For me, travelling down the path to Sawoti evokes a sense of harmony that I associate with the family farm. In turn, this creates a sense of nostalgia. The route reminds me of a now-lost photograph that my parents took of me as an infant. Although this image of me playing in the river was mislaid when my parents divorced, in the course of my studies I was able to imagine and reconstruct what the river looked like, and at which point I would have played in it. Travelling through the valleys during June 2019, I imagined what it would have been like for my great-great-grandparents as they made their descent down the long and winding path for the first time...
M.Tech. (Visual Art)