Heading: Life of bone Exhibition Features Rare Showing of Taung Child Fossil
Sub-head: Ancient hominids and contemporary artworks on view in art-meets-science exhibition at Origins Centre
Residents of Johannesburg will be able to see the Taung child when it goes on display at Wits University’s Origins Centre as part of an interdisciplinary exhibition called Life of bone. The Taung skull, one of South Africa’s most treasured finds in a rich hominid heritage, was discovered at Taung in the North West province in 1925. The fossilised skull is that of a young Australopithecus africanus, or “Southern ape of Africa.” Brought to the attention of the world by Raymond Dart, the skull, estimated at 2.5 million years old, points to the fact that this creature and its kind walked upright on two legs. Believed to have been 3 years old at the time of its death, this touching fossil has rarely been on public view. Also on view will be the Border Cave skull –a fossilized, early human skull– and a chimpanzee skull.
Life of bone, both an exhibition and a book, is the fruit of a series of interactions between a group of artists, scientists and writers, whose work has included the consideration of bones. As Joni Brenner, the co-ordinator of the project, explains, “Our explorations mean that we have dealt with issues of human origin, evolution, human consciousness, deep time, lineage, ancestry and belonging.”
Life of bone has created a meeting of art and science in an exhibition where significant palaeoanthropological discoveries are found in dialogue with artistic responses to bones, life, death, past, present and future. The three artists, Joni Brenner, Gerhard Marx and Karel Nel, have each produced a body of work which relate in different ways to the presence and meaning of skulls or bones. The scientists who have engaged with the artists’ work deal with bones in their own disciplines as anthropologists, geneticists and social scientists involved in human rights work. Further responses to the works have come from a writer and a poet.
Brenner’s work is in the field of portraiture, and she makes watercolour studies of skulls on an almost daily basis. Marx makes images using skulls, star maps and root systems - objects and imagery that all point to fragmented ways of knowing. Nel presents new works using dust collected from places as varied as Taung, Swartkrans, Bastille, Soweto and Whitesands, the site of the first experimental atomic explosion.
Teachers are welcome to contact Joni Brenner, , if they wish to bring learner groups to see the exhibition. In addition, the Wits School of Education will host an exclusive workshop for teachers on May 24 on how to use the book in high school classrooms. Booking through Joni Brenner is essential.
The book, Life of bone, published by Wits University Press, will be launched at the exhibition. Life of bone runs from May 5 - 31, 2011. Origins Centre is open seven days a week from 09h00 -1700.