The exhibition “takes as its starting point that universal
experience of looking up and being amazed and transported by the
celestial firmament above us,” says Christine Mullen Kreamer,
the museum’s deputy director and chief curator. “It’s the first
major exhibition that brings together art and science focused on
Africa’s keen observation of the heavens.” That knowledge was
used “to track movement through space, to regulate agriculture
and the ritual calendar, and to inspire individuals.” She cites
an exhibit reference to Nabta Playa, a site near the border of
Egypt and Sudan where stone circles and sun dials date back
nearly 6,000 years — a thousand years before Stonehenge in
Britain. “I’m not with the department of arts and culture,” says
Derek Hanekom, South Africa’s deputy minister of science and
technology, “but there’s a connection between the depiction of
sky stories, the desire to know more and to express knowledge.”
There is no linear flow to the exhibit; each piece is a singular
artistic response to