Saturday I went with the girls to see Bodies the Exhibition! I have wanted to see it since I first heard it came to town. For those not in the know, it’s an exhibit that has taken human cadavers and preserved them for exhibition. They were even able to separated out their bits and pieces to be preserved separately. So we saw not just whole bodies, but the entire circulatory system was broken down and separated by limb, section and finally the whole dame thing lit up bright red! Spinal cords, embryos…you name it and it was preserved. There was a tumor with hair AND eyes! HAIR AND EYES! That one was nasty and I didn’t even realize what it was until later when comparing notes with one of the girls.
It was weird because all of the exhibits and pieces were once living breathing people (most from China) that are now skinned, preserved and gawked at daily. It was informative, but also had the side-show freak element to it. Certain displays, like the embryo section, were totally meant to shock as much as inform. Yet I was sucked in and had only minimal moments of nausea, mostly caused by a sudden realization that the skinned down person was once walking/talking, not just the strangely wax figure like preserved specimen.
It was worth it to pay for admittance and an audio tour. I learned even more about the human body and saw things that used to be impossible to display until this new preservation process. It was interesting to see what we are really like inside. It’s easy to loose perspective about our bodies and our natural processes. This exhibit does make me reconsider any notion I had of leaving my body to science. I don’t really think I need to be skinned and gawked at…I’ll leave that to other corpses!
It was weird because all of the exhibits and pieces were once living breathing people (most from China) that are now skinned, preserved and gawked at daily. It was informative, but also had the side-show freak element to it. Certain displays, like the embryo section, were totally meant to shock as much as inform. Yet I was sucked in and had only minimal moments of nausea, mostly caused by a sudden realization that the skinned down person was once walking/talking, not just the strangely wax figure like preserved specimen.It was worth it to pay for admittance and an audio tour. I learned even more about the human body and saw things that used to be impossible to display until this new preservation process. It was interesting to see what we are really like inside. It’s easy to loose perspective about our bodies and our natural processes. This exhibit does make me reconsider any notion I had of leaving my body to science. I don’t really think I need to be skinned and gawked at…I’ll leave that to other corpses!
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