Cities And Memory

Silenced Soil begins with a fragile artefact: a recording of Claude Debussy’s Sarabande, composed in 1894 and revised in 1901, then recorded on 11 April 1963 in Gillitts, KwaZulu-Natal, by ethnomusicologist Raymond Clausen. Its only documentation is a handwritten note on a reel-to-reel tape box: “at Gillitt’s, copy of Debussy, Sarabande.” No pianist, no studio, no context. The archive offers little clarity. Sometimes it keeps its silence.Listening to this recording in 2025, I was confronted not only by sound, but by history. Why was Western art music recorded here, under whose authority, and for what purpose, during a period still shaped by colonial power? Before reshaping the music, I had to confront my own position as a descendant of European colonisers. This inherited legacy uncomfortable but necessary became central to the work, sharpening my awareness of cultural imposition, culture colonialism and ongoing calls for restitution.From this reckoning, Silenced Soil emerged. I treated Debussy’s melody as a