Ngaren means “the beginning”.
It is the beginning of a journey.
A marvelous one that began a long time ago.
The human journey.
Your journey.
Our strategy
Ngaren is a flexible and resilient institution that will develop in response to a changing world and changing technologies.
With the final goal of becoming a physical museum in the Kenyan Rift Valley, our strategy starts with the creation of innovative mobile exhibits on the science of origins.
Ngaren is currently creating a series of mobile exhibits that will bring to life its key protagonists as the storytellers of the history of life on this planet.
For Ngaren science storytelling is about creating content and experiences that open people’s minds so that they can learn, re-think, re-invent, and re-imagine what they know.
Mobile Exhibit
Your ancestor Turkana Boy
Featuring an immersive, mixed-reality HoloLens tour, we will bring to life Turkana Boy, an African Homo erectus fossil skeleton found by Kamoya Kimeu, Richard Leakey, and his team in 1984. Dated around 1.6 million years ago, Turkana Boy is the most complete hominin individual ever found.
Experiencing Turkana Boy's humanness in his outlook and gestures will help visitors connect with their own story of origins.
You will be transported back in time to meet one of your African ancestors and listen as Turkana Boy himself tells his own story.
We are all just a tiny piece in the story of life.
I could walk like you using two feet.
But I was ill, and my back hurt.
My people helped me as much as they could.
But I died young.
So, I will forever be a boy.
Turkana Boy.
Planned Exhibits
The Big Bang - A journey into the universe
You will be taken on a journey that shows how human existence is part of a bigger and much older system of life of which humanity is one of its serendipitous expressions. Standing in awe at the beauty and magnificence of the universe, floating as a comet among planets and asteroids, you will be able to feel how small we are, understand our place in the larger story of life, reflect on humanity’s place in the world of nature, and realise the fragility of the systems that keep us alive.
A whale in the desert
The fossilized snout of a whale is found more than 700 km inland from the present coastline of the Indian Ocean, at an elevation of 600 m above the sea level. Today this is a semi-desert in West Turkana: how is that possible?
This is the story of a beaked whale who 17 million years ago fatally entered a river from the ocean and got stranded in shallow waters. When this happened, the world was different from today. The Great African Rift wasn’t there yet, climate was overall warm and humid, and apes were thriving and diversifying across the Old World.
The stranded whale tells you a story of climate change and evolution, when your ape ancestors slowly started to transition from trees to the ground, progressively walking on two feet.
Your ancestors’ journey had no destination, was one of chances, with many experiments and failures.
This is evolution.
