The first time I came to Eshowe my soul stirred with a deep sense of familiarity. Surrounded by sugar cane fields the quaint town with its old buildings and constant bird sounds brought me back to my child hood.

I grew up on a sugar cane farm and spent countless hours exploring the vast fields of lush green cane, climbing ancient fig trees and making fairy houses in the dense bush. I knew immediately that I had to come and make art here, as the work I am doing now relates so perfectly to this environment. It is also so peaceful in this little village …… far away from the hustle and bustle of my daily life as a photographer.

The place I call home for now is Umdloti Beach which is 20 minutes north of Durban, in South Africa. It is also surrounded by sugar cane and bush but alas developers are feeding their bank balances and slowly but surely the undulating greenery of the Natal North Coast is being turned into mass developments of identical houses. Not only are these clone like gated villages springing up everywhere, but soon our quiet town will be filled with the noise of Boeings. The government is relocating the Durban airport a mere 15 minutes away, right near the reed marshes where a population of 1.5 million migratory bard swallows come to roost.

Over the past year or so I have been walking through the green spaces with my camera documenting landscapes soon to be obliterated. This act of creating records was in a sense an exercise to generate memories of what will become history. Yet it was also an exercise in exploring my own childhood memory and the values I have as an adult today.

I have been using these photographs as the basis for richly layered mixed media works using a combination of painting, collage and photography. This body of work is still very unfinished and so I have come here to Eshowe to be an artist in residence, to complete what I have started and to transfer the rest of my ideas from my head and onto canvas. I hope that these works will inspire South Africans to be more proactive in protecting their heritage and environment.

My creative juices have been flowing profusely, spurred on by the sound of the hornbills, the forest walks, and the cool breezes. I have found it so easy to work here as the thick Dhlinza forest cools the syrupy tropical Natal air. We went for a drive through the winding dirt back roads between Gingingdhlovu and Eshowe today. The vast African landscape vistas along the way are truly something to behold.

I have nearly been here a week already … time has just slipped through me, its amazing how the clock seems to have slowed down and yet speeded up. It has been a pleasure to turn off the mobile, ignore my email and concentrate on the creative process. Work is coming along well and I have been motoring on through into the wee hours every night. Well…., not every night, I have enjoyed a glass of wine at the local bar at the George Hotel too. Its gorgeously decorated with an African Zulu theme. Old sepia photographs adorn the walls, couches are covered with opulently coloured Mozambiquen fabrics and books steeped in Zulu history sit safely in glass cabinets behind the bar.

Two weeks till exhibition D-Day and there has been a great response from the local community, the local newspaper has even written a great article on my work. I will be having the exhibition, which I am calling “Remember” at the George Hotel. After showing it here for a month I will move it to an established gallery in Durban called Artspace.

I am constantly inspired by the green lush surroundings and huge smiles of the local community. I have even found a seamstress and a carpenter who have been a huge help in taking my exhibition forward.

Exhibition opening went very well. The local support was great and a number of people came up from Durban, which is only an hour and a half away. I am looking forward to adding to this body of work and carrying forth this inspiration and motivation, as I need to add to this show and move it to new eyes.

Jacki Bruniquel is a Durban based image-maker, a graduate in Fine Art from the University of Cape Town and Photography from the Durban University of Technology. She has backpacked around the world extensively, and since settling back in her home country South Africa, exhibits her artwork extensively and also freelances as a commercial photographer.