Exhibitions
EXPERIENCE THE GREAT AFRICAN SEAFOREST
For humans to be healthy, the air, oceans, forests, and all the varied and wonderful beings that we share this planet with need to be healthy.
This health must include the reconciliation between humanity and nature. The Great African Seaforest is one of the most visually captivating landscapes on our planet. Its three-dimensional, fully immersive nature is a playground for creativity, imagination and connection. As filmmakers, photographers, designers and storytellers, we believe that immersive technology can offer a transcendental educational experience. This has moved us to explore multimedia exhibitions as a bridge to reach audiences on an immersive and experiential level using traditional and new-media, from photographs and film, to AR, VR and digital projections.
Sea Change Project catalysed a movement of outdoor photographic exhibitions on the Sea Point promenade in Cape Town. Set against the backdrop of the Atlantic Ocean, we combined photography and augmented reality to showcase the Great African Seaforest, revealing it to many for the very first time. Approximately one million people saw this exhibition.
“Much of my work with the Great African Seaforest over the last decade has been inspired by the lives of the ancient people who lived here, in a pristine environment for thousands of generations. They knew that their survival depended on the natural world and that wisdom is something that we desperately need to reawaken in all contemporary humans.” – Craig Foster
Every human on Earth can trace their ancestry back to the original people who lived in Africa, many of whom inhabited this coastline more than 100 000 years ago. The Origins of Early Southern Sapiens Behaviour exhibition showcases the culmination of some 30 years of archaeological research in the southern Cape undertaken by paleontological researchers at the SapienCE institution. Their remarkable discoveries highlight the rich archaeological records of three unique South African sites that were occupied by early Homo sapiens (humans who behaved and looked like us) between 120 000 and 50 000 years ago – a key period in the evolution of modern human behaviour.
The exhibition attempts to recreate the lives our early ancestors would have experienced, living in partnership with nature and the Great African Seaforest 100 000 years ago. The daily life of early Homo sapiens has been visually recreated and on display are near perfect replicas of the oldest collection of engravings on earth, among the earliest beads, the first known drawing and the first evidence for bows and arrows. These artefacts represent the first evidence of symbolic material culture that would change the course of our entire species. In essence these are the world’s first proto books and computers.
This Origins of Early Southern Sapiens behaviour exhibit is now open in two locations: Cape Town’s Cape of Good Hope National Park (aka Cape Point), and a satellite exhibit including new exhibits, at the De Hoop Nature Reserve.
We hope our immersive stories, knowledge and love of this environment can play a part in rewarming the human heart to the natural world and motivate action that allows the living planet to thrive and regenerate itself. As we continue to explore the exhibition and multimedia space, we are also looking to partner strategically with communities, museums, science centres, universities and galleries worldwide.
