The Body as Art, Education and Oddity

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.