A case for Icansi
Icansi-media is a citadel to highlight tourism gems wrapped in arts and heritage, laden with untold stories of history and culture.
The project prides itself as a prime repository to promote South Africa's diverse world-class eco-tourism spaces.
The beauty of South Africa's flora and fauna is located in history, heritage, and roots.
The medium is a metaphor for the underrated African mat - Icansi, which is an underdog in the environs of decor, glare and elevation.
This underrated implement amplifies place, existence, and sense of spiritual, cultural, and traditional mores of the Nguni-speaking group.
The beginning, progression, and success in life rest upon Icansi for better or worse.
Then and now, when a child is born, it is tumbled onto Icansi on the ground smelling fresh cow dung.
Marriage talks are underscored by the use of the Icansi given dowry (ilobolo), and prescribed gifts are placed on it.
The gifts are placed on this sacred object to seal the birth of a spiritual merger of two families into one.
It is a primary implement to build and cement relations, seal or terminate bonds.
On burial, a torn Icansi is laid on top of the coffin as a blanket or beneath it as a cushion to rest upon.
Its use for solemn moments is preceded by its lifelong use for sitting, lying to rest, and also as a blind or curtain.
Its glory is dispensed with the bare hands of African women sharing pearls of wisdom under a Baobab tree, constructing geometric designs.
Icansi-media will, while advancing rural tourism development, offer engagement to correct, if not rewrite history, to reclaim indigenous and ancient wisdom.
Issues will be underpinned by a compelling social, spiritual, and historical upliftment agenda.
That agenda will be driven by tourism, the arts, heritage, stories of martyrs, pioneers, and innovators against odds and man-made barriers.
Hidden history and heritage sites along protected areas on the major Zululand Heritage Route 66 are yearning for the attention of discerning tourists.
The route links the towns, villages, and reserves of Gingindlovu, Eshowe, Melmoth, Ulundi, Nongoma, and Pongola - all sites of epic history.
The route encompasses approximately 18 game reserves with high-end luxury lodges and iconic sites.
The Zululand Heritage Route 66 is intertwined with the Isandlwana battlefields in the uMzinyathi district, where Zulu warriors defeated the English army in 1879.
Icansimedia will seek to expose hidden tourist havens in the hinterland while also joining the dots out of the past and present to find pathways into the future.
The pathways are embedded in arts, tourism, heritage, and nature.