Flow has always associated itself with exciting clients and challenging work. Managing the PR and marketing for the upcoming Sci-Bono Discovery Centre exhibition – Wonders of Rock Art: Lascaux Cave and Africa – is no exception.
Towards the end of April, the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre, in association with the French Embassy and the French Institute of South Africa (IFAS), announced that it would be bringing replicas of the world-famous Lascaux cave paintings and of the cave itself to South Africa. This is a real coup for South Africa, and for Flow, which will be publicising the touring exhibition.
“We are excited, honoured and proud to host this remarkable, one-of-a-kind exhibition,” says Dr More Chakane, CEO of the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre.
The Palaeolithic cave paintings, discovered in 1940 in the Lascaux cave near the village of Montignac in Dordogne, south-western France, are around 17 000 years old. The paintings, which mostly depict large animals native to the region at the time, are regarded as masterpieces due to their outstanding quality and sophistication. The exhibit itself is as impressive, since it features reproductions of more than 2 000 figures painted on the walls of the caves.
Providing visitors with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to engage with some of humanity’s earliest examples of creative expression, the paintings will go on show at the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre alongside South African rock art that dates back more than 70 000 years. The South African element of the exhibition, titled The Dawn of Art, is curated by the University of the Witwatersrand’s Rock Art Research Institute, the Origins Centre and IFAS-Recherche.
The Lascaux site in France opened to the public in 1948, but was closed in 1963 to protect the priceless artworks from deterioration. Today, Lascaux is on the Unesco list of World Heritage Sites, and access to the cave is strictly controlled.
Flow worked to a tight timeline ahead of the media announcement of the exhibition at Sci-Bono on 17 April 2018, setting up catering and decor, getting invitations designed and distributed, and ensuring that a large media contingent was in attendance to share the exciting news. The Star featured the announcement by the French ambassador to South Africa, Christophe Farnaud, in the following day’s edition, on page 3.
“The combined exhibition will be seen nowhere else on Earth. The masterpieces by our own African ancestors, viewed alongside those of the ancient Palaeolithic Europeans, provide a unique opportunity to experience the very earliest dawn of human creativity,” says Chakane.
The exhibition opens at the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre, corner of Miriam Makeba and Helen Joseph streets in Newtown, on 17 May 2018.
