Jordan Stanley
Blog Post 2
This past Tuesday, January 19th, the SASA class drove to Maropeng to explore the history of the Cradle of Mankind, the theory of evolution, and the roles of the natural elements. The Maropeng site features a museum that from outside could appear to be a grass-covered hill from afar. As one nears it, however, a tall entryway materializes, and the journey into a museum that marries the sciences and the arts gorgeously begins. This coupling – the science and the arts – was what made my experience at Maropeng both so meaningful and enlightening. As a writer and an English major, the one grudge I held against the Elon University CORE curriculum was the requirement of two science classes. Naturally, in retrospect I did gain an appreciation for some elements of the sciences through those required classes just as I did through the exhibits featured at Maropeng. This was to be expected though, as the museum is nationally and internationally known. What came to me as a pleasant surprise was how the exhibits used art as a medium to both enhance the science and marry those scientific findings with related political science. As some background, Maropeng was formed to tell the story of the Cradle of Humankind. This title refers to a 47,000-hectare valley where the oldest human body and signs of human activity have been discovered, dating back 3 million years. Since initial discoveries, 40% of human ancestor fossils have been found in the Cradle. Once of the most noteworthy signs of human activity discovered in the African caves has been human’s earliest mastery of fire. It is this revolutionary human interaction with the element that influenced the museum’s sub-focus on the four elements and how they are crucial to human life. Excluding this sub-focus for now, the Maropeng museum delved into the science of evolution – mainly that of humans – and how humans originated from that very area of Africa. Much of this discussion of evolution was catalyzed by Charles Darwin, who after visiting the Cradle of Humankind wrote his famous essay “Origin of Species.” Though his theories are expansive, the museum mostly referred to his thoughts on how humans are potentially related to apes in their ancestry. The guide who brought our SASA class around the museum said that Darwin’s theory that humans were not descendants of apes but rather shared a common ancestor with them – was mostly consistent with the Africanist perspective, though it is not specifically represented in Darwin’s texts. This “man-like ape” as our guide described it – or her, since her smaller brain (in size not necessarily intellect) indicated she was female – was found in the Cradle. This was the scientific basis for the artistic interpretation that the museum illustrated for its consumers. Because the evolution of humanity looks to how the human body evolved over time, there were several simulations of what the different skins, faces, and most prominently skeletons looked like. Additionally, there were displays of genetic studies – I believe connected to the Human Genome Project – that confirmed that all humans share 99.9% common DNA. It was the presence of the skeletons and this DNA data that lead to the first impactful quote the museum used to frame the consumer’s mindset. Right before the class entered the main underground scientific displays, we passed a quote on the wall written in giant letters. I should have recorded it verbatim, but the gist was that we are all human, no matter where we are from and no matter what we look like; beneath all of our skin – no matter what color – is a skeleton that looks virtually the same. The quote read that “race has no genetic boundary” and that there is only one race: the human race. With this quote in mind, our class entered the museum to see that the science of evolution and elements took up about 2/3 of the left of a long room stretching back to a large projector screen at the rear of the space. To the right though, was corresponding wall art, some containing propaganda, some quotes, and some data and statistics. Yet it was art. First I perused the scientific portion of the room, looking at the evolution from dinosaurs to birds and different people across the globe, and how continental drift transitioned Pangea into the 7 continents we now have. Even these scientific arrays were artistic, each mini exhibit displayed on a colorful half circle, positioned to complement on another as the room stretched back. To the right, however, was the real art. The first image was that of a life-sized man graffiti-ing the wall with a quote that pleaded for human equality and change. Other quotes or propaganda posters also preached human equality – always underlying this one human race – while others questioned racism and racism disadvantages for children such as education, poverty and hunger. This right half of the room could have been an exhibit independent from the evolutionary science, yet that it coincided made it even more powerful. For me, as an English major who originally resented the required coursework for the sciences, the left and right sides of the room really linked together the reason why science is important. We can use science to change the world not just for biological studies, but for drawing people together, for neutralizing the political science and rhetoric that has shoved us apart. Art and science were wed together at Maropeng for the sake of unity – or rather, unifying the multitude of races into one human race. And it used more evidence for the argument of unification than just statistics on hardship of separation; it used biological logic – that we all look the same if we just peel back the thin layer of our epidermis, the confines of our flesh – and this argument may reach a different type of crowd than previously reached. Finally when I reached the back of the room where the big projector screen was displayed, I sat down to watch a video that I assumed would be a science documentary. Rather, it was a video about human creativity, showing all mediums of art – carving, painting, writing, dancing, speaking – emphasizing the intention of the exhibit overall and sending me on the train of thought that inspired this blog post. Sometimes it takes a little creativity to provoke change; sometimes it takes a little creativity to affect someone’s mind; sometimes it takes a little creativity to make an English major love the sciences.
