PAST – All From One

PAST – the Paleontological Scientific Trust, is an organisation that since 1994 has been dedicated to the mission of protecting, preserving & promoting the scientific evidence of our shared origins in Africa, and making this valuable to the future of humankind. PAST uses the origin sciences as a powerful tool for promoting racial harmony and environmental conservation.

TBWA\Digital Arts Network and Grid were tasked with creating a campaign to highlight that there is only a 0.1% difference in the chemical sequences that make up the genes of the entire human race. All living things share a commonality, seemingly small but infinitely powerful. We share DNA, a 99.9% similarity with each other. Yet we tend to focus on our differences: a difference that is only 0.1%.

We asked people to pledge to tolerate our few differences and respect each other; unite as one human species to create a prosperous future; collaborate with one another to achieve more; or conserve our natural environments and biodiversity. This website collects the faces of people that make these pledges and in so doing builds up the face of Humanity. The viewer can delve deeper and view the face of any city that has had people make pledges from, allowing us to see the face of Johannesburg, New York, Sydney etc and how the face differs (or looks much the same) from region to region.

Awards for the campaign:
Loeries Bronze – Mixed Media