Bodies… The Exhibition

[Edward]

MSNBC.com
Exhibition gives a look inside the human body
Skinless cadavers, variety of organs on display in New York show
Bruno J. Navarro
Reporter
MSNBC
Updated: 2:20 p.m. ET Dec. 1, 2005

NEW YORK - If an anatomy textbook came to life, it might look like “Bodies … The Exhibition,” a show that opened Saturday at South Street Seaport in Manhattan.
The exhibit features 22 human bodies and 260 specimens preserved for display in a 30,000-square-foot space. Highlights include skinless cadavers in a football player’s pose, another throwing a baseball and one body holding hands with its own removed skeleton — all to show how muscles, tendons and bones work together.
“This is just mind-blowing,” said Madeline Michaels of New York. “I feel absolutely grateful that this is here.”
Michaels, 44, a licensed therapist, said she had heard about the exhibit from an online group of colleagues and decided she would be among the first.
At the exhibit on Saturday, she sat beside one of the displays — a body in a basketball free-throw pose — and traced its contours with her eyes for several minutes.
“Every day, I massage people. Every day, I put my hands on people. When you see it three-dimensional, it gives you that much more appreciation,” she said afterward.
“Obviously, the bodies are posed to give them a more approachable appearance. So there’s a lot of life in the room,” said John Zeller, who co-curated the exhibit with Judy Geller. “You're seeing this mirror image of yourself.”
“We have this phrase we use here: To see is to know,” he said.
Divided into displays that focus on the body’s different systems — muscular, skeletal, circulatory, reproductive and respiratory — the exhibit features a variety of organs, as well as diseases that affect them.
A smoker’s carbon-colored lungs are placed side-by-side with a healthy pair; dark spots of a stroke victim’s brain are shown beside a normal one, extreme cases of cancer show up along with healthy specimens.
One part of the exhibit shows an entire circulatory system, minus any other body part, suspended in liquid and illuminated against a dark background, creating a sort of 3D silhouette created by blood vessels.
Another area of the exhibit simulates the view an MRI scan provides cross-sectional views of a body by physically slicing it and separating it in a display case.
'Seeing inside yourself'
Still another portion — complete with a warning to exhibit-goers and a disclaimer that the specimens were obtained through natural deaths — shows fetuses in various stages of development, as well as one in utero and another of conjoined twins.
Organizers say they wanted to highlight the body’s inner workings in a new way as an educational tool and not provide a “freak show.”
“We're hoping to create a whole new generation who can converse about their bodies,” said Roy Glover, the medical director for Atlanta-based Premier Exhibitions and retired anatomy professor at the University of Michigan School of Medicine.
Glover said the specimens were obtained from a laboratory at Dalian Medical University in China that preserved them using a process where water is removed and replaced with a polymer that turns them rubber-like.
The show has come under fire from human rights advocates who charge that the bodies and organs may have been illegally obtained through the Chinese government. Objections over the New York show echo similar accusations of exploitation directed at other popular "corpse shows" which have attracted millions of visitors in Asia, Europe and Los Angeles over the last several years.
Not intended to be sensational, the "Bodies" exhibit nonetheless provided fantastical views of the body’s inner workings.
“It’s more calming than I thought I would be,” said Randy L. Kaplan, 39, of Merrick, N.Y. “It's like opening a window and seeing inside of yourself.”

© 2005 MSNBC Interactive
URL: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10137337/

[TLOZ Link5]

I saw something like this in London three years ago. I think that it's the BodyWorlds exhibit that's now on display at the Franklin Institute in Philly.

[Punzie]

TLOZ, wherever you are up there, please forgive me for posting after you on this topic...



~*~

The exhibition described by Edward has been extended until February 28, 2007.

For complete information:

http://www.bodiestheexhibition.com/

~*~



Rest in peace, TLOZ.

[Punzie]

Announcing that "Bodies -- The Exhibition" has been extended at the South Street Seaport until May 31, 2007. For information:

http://www.southstreetseaport.com/ht....asp?ecd=85294

[sfenn1117]

Very cool exhibit, but NOT worth $27, that's for sure. I went in January and it was very hot inside, and only took an hour to go through it all. It was a Saturday and was packed.