A Look at Our 'Bodies,' Ourselves
By Michael O'Sullivan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 11, 2007; Page WE52
Wandering recently through "Bodies . . . The Exhibition," the traveling anatomy show that has drawn controversy for its use of real, if rubberized, human corpses from China, I couldn't help thinking of the 2002 film "Tattoo," a macabre psychological thriller from Germany about someone who collects body art . . . needless to say, without the consent of the artworks' owners.
That's because there is, in fact, a patch of decorated human skin on view at the show, at the Dome in Rosslyn (formerly the Newseum). Sitting near the show's exit, this ghoulish little piece of skin art has little to do with the core mission of "Bodies," which is to explore, close up, the functioning of our physical selves. That purpose seems adequately served by another display case that comes much earlier in the exhibition, containing an entire human skin, laid out like a wet suit that zips up the sides and is intact down to the belly button and nipples.
Rather, the small patch of skin inked with a woman's face seems to serve as a tacit reminder that these bodies and body parts aren't just chunks of meat -- though a nearby showcase featuring "transverse human sections" resembles nothing so much as an array of pork chops at a butcher counter -- but that they come from, you know, people. (The specimens, according to the organizers, were all obtained legally from donated or unclaimed corpses.)
It's a message that "Bodies," to its credit -- and despite its somewhat detached-sounding title -- doesn't try to hide. Why else arrange some of the cadavers in the poses (and, occasionally, with the props) of a hitchhiker, orchestra conductor or basketball player? Why else leave the eyebrows on, when all the other skin has been carefully removed from the head and face? On second thought, I have no idea why they did that. That's just plain weird. But thanks for the nightmares.
Speaking of nightmares, "Bodies" is not above grossing you out. Chief among the list of specimens guaranteed to disturb is a teratoma, or tumor whose name comes from the Greek word for "monster." Not only is it honkin' huge, but you can look inside to see hair and teeth growing, along with an incipient eyeball forming on the outside. Nice.
Elsewhere, you'll find examples of a cancerous bone, goitrous thyroid, sclerotic artery and smoker's lung. See, "Bodies" also wants to promote "healthy lifestyle choices," according to its press materials. All of which is well and good. I applaud the fact that you're encouraged to toss your cigarettes into a bin after looking at the effects of emphysema and other lung diseases. But with widespread obesity becoming one of the more serious health risks to the American population, I question the pertinence of using cadavers that appear as scrawny as plucked chickens. A tub of fat under glass would be a better reminder of the more likely health risks we face than the fused spine bones of someone suffering from ankylosing spondylitis.
Much has been made of the scientific advances that have enabled the preservation of these specimens, in which a hard silicone polymer replaces all the water in the body. But when you come right down to it, despite all the futuristic embalming techniques, the stuff on display is, literally and figuratively, as bare bones as it comes. Absent are the high-tech "interactives" and touch-screen monitors we've grown used to finding at state-of-the-art science museum exhibitions.
In their place, you'll find a stripped-down, 21st-century version of a 19th-century cabinet of wonders, with a facsimile of the body's 60,000 miles of blood vessels, for example -- the superhighway inside our skin, glowing like red lacework -- replacing examples of the wonderful world around us.
Similarly old-school -- but not in a good way -- is the manner in which some body parts are labeled. In many cases, tiny and nearly invisible plastic tags have been affixed to such parts as the spinal nerves, making for eye strain (or worse, complete illegibility) in a dim lighting scenario that sometimes sacrifices didactics for drama.
Judging by the comments logged in the books set out at the show's exit, visitors' reactions have varied widely, including revulsion ("Gross!," wrote one), sadness at the display of fetuses (a convenient detour is offered for those who wish to avoid that section) and the conviction that the body's intricacy is proof positive of religious creationism.
Like our own bodies, fraught as we are with feelings about them that go beyond the corporeal, each visitor's take on the exhibition will be different. One thing, however, seems assured: The only buttons that will get pressed, in this bell-and-whistle-free zone, are the ones you enter with.
The Body as Art, Education and Oddity
By Annie Gowen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 15, 2007; Page C03
It could be argued that there are more pleasant pursuits on a cherry blossom weekend in Washington than looking at a bunch of flayed and dissected human remains preserved in silicone, but Connie Murray would disagree.
The Mechanicsville woman was among the first ticket holders to see "Bodies . . . the Exhibition," an exhibit that opened yesterday in Rosslyn and uses 250 preserved human specimens to shed light on the inner workings of the body.
Murray, 39, aspires to be a forensic examiner when she retires from her job at the Census Bureau, so she thought everything about the exhibit was fabulous: the skeletons, the exposed muscles, the cross section of a lung darkened by smoking, even the tumor sprouting hair, teeth and its own eyeball.
Fabulous.
"I'm just fascinated by it all," Murray said. "We're in on this whole forensic-type thing. We want to see a real autopsy! So it's nice to see the visual."
She was touring the show with friend and co-worker Shawn Paterson, 51.
"The body, it's so miraculous." Paterson said, peering at a figure of a man dissected to show off the lung. "Look how intricate it is."
Murray continued, "So we watch 'CSI' and all those shows . . ."
"Me, too!" a woman standing nearby chimed in. "In case I actually have to kill someone."
Run by Atlanta-based Premier Exhibitions Inc., "Bodies . . . the Exhibition" has drawn more than 3 million visitors, including in London, Las Vegas and New York, since its inception in 2004, organizers say. It is set to continue for at least six months at the Dome in Arlington, the old Newseum site, and could draw up to 500,000.
It's one of several traveling anatomy shows that have surfaced in the past decade that attempt to demystify the body using preserved remains. They have drawn crowds -- and controversy -- all over the world. One, "Body Worlds," was the backdrop for a scene in "Casino Royale," the latest James Bond movie.
Some people question the ethics of displaying human remains this way.
Roy Glover, the exhibit's medical adviser and former director of the University of Michigan's polymer preservation lab, said that the bodies at the Dome exhibit were obtained legally from China. The people died of natural causes and didn't have a family member to claim them, he said.
The show's primary goal is to display the bodies respectfully while educating the public, he said.
"Most people don't understand a lot of what's happening inside them," he said. "They need practical information to understand how their bodies work and about the impact of disease, which may make them reconsider bad habits like smoking, drugs and alcohol intake."
"Bodies . . . the Exhibition" made the news again recently when someone swiped a kidney from the show's demonstration booth in Seattle. It remained missing for two months until police recovered it with help from an anonymous tipster. ("It looks fine," Seattle police Officer Debra Brown said afterward, according to the Oregonian. "I mean, I don't know how a plasticized kidney should look. But I don't think it was used as a softball.")
Claire Spirtas-Hurst, 6, toured the Rosslyn show yesterday with her mother, Patti Hurst, 40, a lawyer, and pronounced it "disgusting."
She wrote a nicer message in the comment book, though:
"I think It is a little skary. Because all of the bodies are cut apart and without the skin. I learned that you can get lung cancer from smoking. I will not smoke ever in my life!"
After that, she and her mother sailed out the door -- all the 600 skeletal muscles and miles of blood vessels in their bodies working together to transport the two of them into the rest of their Saturday. Lunch was next. Either Chipotle or the Lost Dog Cafe, they hadn't decided.
Anatomy Made Controversial
Exhibit's Use of Human Cadavers Is Often Condemned
By Fredrick Kunkle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 16, 2007; Page B05
Ever wonder what another person might look like without makeup or hair? How about without skin?
Washingtonians will soon be able to gaze at -- and, in some cases, handle -- human remains that have been transformed at the cellular level into silicone mummies at an exhibition in Arlington this spring.
"BODIES . . . The Exhibition" will open in the former Newseum building in Rosslyn in mid-April, organizers said. It is one of at least three exhibits using human cadavers that have stirred controversy nearly everywhere they go.
Catholic and Protestant churches have protested the opening of body exhibits in Europe, and the directors of an off-beat museum in Seattle filed a legal challenge to "BODIES . . . The Exhibition" there. The German physician who pioneered the preservation method created a competing exhibit and has been accused of using bodies without proper consent, which he has denied.
The specimens include entire human bodies that have been skinned, dissected, rubberized, colored and reassembled to highlight particular organs. They are then posed doing everyday activities, such as kicking a soccer ball or pedaling a bicycle. At the end, visitors can handle a kidney, a brain or a heart. Arnie Geller, chief executive of Premier Exhibitions Inc., estimated that the Washington exhibit could draw as many as 500,000 people over six months.
"It's the kind of education you'll never get in the classroom," Geller said in an interview this week.
"BODIES . . . The Exhibition" and the competing exhibits have been riding a voyeuristic craze for several years, drawing hordes of the living wherever they go. Their fans and backers say they offer startling but ultimately wholesome opportunities for ordinary people to explore and demystify human anatomy.
But others dismiss the ventures as ghoulish freak shows mounted by modern-day P.T. Barnums. Questions also persist about the provenance of the specimens, especially because many come from China, where there have been documented abuses in the sale of organs for transplants. Some organs sold to Westerners for transplants, for example, have been traced to criminals executed for petty offenses.
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, a professor of medical anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley, said some of the bodies might have come from people whose consent was not obtained or was obtained involuntarily, despite recent laws designed to crack down on such abuses.
"Consent has no meaning in China," said Scheper-Hughes, who created Organ Watch to monitor international trafficking in organs.
But Roy Glover, who is the medical adviser to the coming exhibit, said all specimens in his company's exhibit were obtained legally and ethically.
Glover, a former director of the University of Michigan Medical School's polymer preservation laboratory, said the bodies are from people who died of natural causes and had no known family member to claim them. Under Chinese law, such bodies are given to medical schools or other institutions for educational uses.
Premier Exhibitions said its bodies are all obtained through Sui Hongjin, a doctor at the Dalian Medical University Plastination Laboratories. The Chinese government also has given them "letters of assurance" that the bodies were obtained legally, he said. Glover and Geller said the reason so many bodies come from China is because no other country has such a supply of technically skilled people who can dissect them.
"I would not be associated with Premier Exhibitions or have any dealings as a spokesman for the exhibit if the bodies we were using were obtained illegally or unethically," Glover said. "Members of the company spent a considerable amount of time in China finding just the right partner."
Premier Exhibitions is a publicly traded corporation. A subsidiary, RMS Titanic Inc., owns the rights to artifacts salvaged from the sunken ocean liner.
One of the competing exhibits, "Body Worlds," is the work of Gunther von Hagens, the German doctor widely credited with inventing the preservation process, known as plastination, in the 1970s. His exhibit made a cameo appearance in the latest James Bond movie, "Casino Royale."
The other competing exhibit, "Our Body: The Universe Within," is produced by Baltimore-based the Universe Within Touring Co. LLC and contains 20 human bodies obtained from China. The Baltimore group says on its Web site that its specimens were obtained "consistent with the laws of China."
