The UB Post

Issue date: 4/2/08 Section: Distractions

Media Credit: Copyright: Gunther von Hagens, Institute for Plastination, Heidelberg, Germany, www.bodyworlds.com
The Yoga Lady shows one of the human body's most extreme postures. Specimens like this take 1,500 hours of work (roughly two months if worked on 24/7) and cost up to $59,000 to prepare for display.)

Making its first mid-Atlantic appearance, Gunther von Hagens' "Body Worlds 2: The Original Exhibition of Real Human Bodies & The Brain—Our Three- Pound Gem" is currently on display at the Maryland Science Center in Baltimore. The exhibit, featuring hundreds of preserved human and animal specimens, shows the complexity of biology on both macro and micro levels.

The exhibit is academically useful for people working in professions or studying topics related to the biological sciences, and it is equally interesting to people who are not. The theme of the exhibit is education.

"The exhibit was an excellent display of the inner workings of the human body, from the nervous system to the muscular system," said Joe Slider, history major and Undergraduate Student Senate president.

"There was also a display of three lung specimens from a healthy person, a smoker and a coal miner. I'm glad I don't smoke and that I'm not a coal miner," Slider said, remarking on the damage done to both the smoker and miner's lungs.

All of the bodies were donated to von Hagens, controversial anatomist and inventor of plastination. Von Hagens demonstrates that when a body's natural fluids are replaced with polymers (plastic), decay can be stopped altogether. The specimens on display do not indicate the donor's cause of death or personal identity.

Viewed as an extremist, von Hagens once re-created Rembrandt's famous painting "Anatomy Lesson of Professor Nicolaes Tulp" (1632) in front of a live 500-person audience. The crowd was generally sickened and called his work uncivilized for making death entertaining.

Because the bodies von Hagens chooses to use in his exhibits have been plastinated, they can be manipulated into various positions that other preservation techniques, such as slicing and freezing, cannot duplicate.

Sarah Quinn, negotiations and conflict management student, feels that the exhibit shows a lack of respect for death. "It's unnatural to see a skull all exploded in front of you. It's supposed to be about education, but I think it's really about shock."

Progressing through the exhibit, the displayed bodies become more mutilated and contorted. In addition to uneasiness, many respond with curious tension and dread about what will be around the next corner. As the skeletal remains of infants and children come into view, the exhibit feels more and more like a horror ride at an amusement park. The only thing that would make this exhibit more disturbing would be to see accompanying photos of the subjects before plastination.

Throughout the exhibit, third to fifth graders on school field trips toggle between fear and amazement as they gasp in reaction to the blood vessel configuration of roosters and ducks and gawk at pliable human remains. The exhibit is supposed to create an appreciation for the "beauty and fragility of our existence," according to bodyworlds.com, but a large component for its success is the shock value that comes from seeing smiling skinless bodies in often unnatural poses or performing everyday tasks.

"I wanted to leave the exhibit a little more educated but, instead, I was just more disgusted," Quinn said. "Maybe it wouldn't be so horrible if the exhibit was better taken care of—there were random pieces of skin wagging from feet and arms and faces. It's like the bodies were preserved carefully, but now no one cares to maintain them."

In addition to newly plastinated bodies, the exhibit also features much older specimens, such as horizontal and vertical slices of brains, hearts, lungs, and even a full body. There are also interactive displays, which allow people the opportunity to touch plastinates.

Body Worlds 2 is a temporary exhibit, closing on Sept. 1. Visitors should allow one to three hours to spend in the exhibit. Visit www. mdsci.org for special ticket prices, varying museum hours and local parking discounts.

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hollie.lockhart@ubalt.edu

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Maryland Science Center
601 Light St.

web–www.mdsci.org

phone–410.685.5225

student tickets–$23

Body Worlds web–www.bodyworlds.com

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