On January 13 the much-anticipated Our Bodies: The Universe Within exhibit will be opening at the Detroit Science Center.
I saw a very similar exhibit to this (Gunther von Hagens’ Body Worlds) about two years ago in Chicago. It was stunning. While being in a room filled with artfully dissected corpses (and highly informative explanatory text and diagrams) was a tad disturbing, it was also humbling and awe-inspiring.
This exhibit looks to be absolutely fascinating, even though it’s not Body Worlds — which is a shame; von Hagen’s work is exceptional, and von Hagen himself pretty fascinating. Predictably, the display of skinned and dissected human bodies has kicked up a little controversy.
Interestingly, while the Body Worlds exhibit I saw went to great pains to distract from the fact that what was on display were the actual plastinated remains of humans, this exhibit coming to the Science Center is trumpeting the display of “Actual Human Bodies” as its primary selling point. I guess that’s the difference between Chicago and Detroit.
Dave-o is a frequent contributor to the Hugs video-cast. He unabashedly supports Poor Mojo’s Newswire, a blog of merit since 1905 — now available electronically!
1 user commented in " Ghoulish and Educational: “Our Body” Exhibit Opens Next Weekend in Detroit "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackAny assurance from China that the bodies were legally obtained is meaningless. China is a dictatorship, and the rule of law is a meaningless concept there. They may be the bodies of the poor, the disenfranchised, prisoners, or even political prisons. To the Chinese government, this is just another export item.
Even if there was permission granted by the deceased, that does not make the exhibit OK. These exhibits treat the bodiesof the deceased, and human beings as fascinating and complicated objects. We are more than this. We are people than live and love and laugh and cry, and we, and our remains should be treated with dignity and respect. It is not much of a stretch from objectifying us to the conclusion that if a few or a few million of those objects are hurt it is no big deal. Real bodies, or real anything is not necessary to educate. Hollywood and newspapers know this, and so should museum directors. For more information check out
http://dignityinboston.googlepages.com/detroit
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