International Museum Day at Freedom Park’s new //hapo museum
Saturday, 18 May was International Museum Day. To commemorate this day, ShowMe Pretoria decided to visit the brand new state-the-art //hapo museum at Freedom Park in Pretoria. //hapo which means “dream”, is a word taken from a Khoi proverb that suggest that:
A dream is not a dream until it is shared by the entire community.”
The museum takes you on a journey through time and tells the story of South Africa from prehistoric times until today. The focus does not purely lie on scientific and historical facts but gets beautifully intertwined with South Africa’s cultural and spiritual past. With huge illuminating screens, interactive info-screens and an artistic and modern design, the museum will simply take your breath away.
The museum is not overwhelmingly big and is neatly divided into seven large sections called Epochs. Each Epoch has its own feel and design and showcases a part of South African history. From the origin of the universe (Epoch 1), through to the evolving of humankind and African spirituality (Epoch 2), the continent before colonisation (Epoch 3), the era of resistance and colonisation (Epoch 4), industrialisation and urbanisation (Epoch 5), nationalism and struggle (Epoch 6) and the new era in which we find ourselves today (Epoch 7).
//hapo manages to masterfully fuse scientific knowledge with traditional knowledge and is a definite must-see for anyone visiting or living in Pretoria.
Visit Freedom Park’s official home page for more information (here).
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