We talked Tuesday about Body Worlds and its similarities to the Museum in the video. I brought up how I visited the exhibit in Cleveland when I was younger, and I wanted to use my post this week to talk about it.
Body Worlds is a traveling exhibit that displays preserved bodies and their respective organs. It has received a lot criticism, but there has been a lot of praise for its displays of the inner workings of the human body. As I said before, my family and I visited the exhibit when I was young, and when we bought the tickets we weren't all that sure on what the exhibit was. Of course we were in for a shock.
As creepy and surreal looking at dead humans were, there was a certain educational value to it. I remember they had exhibits on the differences between athletes and smokers, but one of the more intriguing pieces was dedicated to the development of the unborn fetus from contraception to birth. As I kid, I was amazed by the transition of a single cell into human through real human examples. (This post was not meant to spark any debate on abortion or any of that, I am only describing what I saw.)
Some of the things I saw were grotesque. Obviously, my little brother was not able to appreciate some things as my parents and I could. There is definitely some shock value in the exhibit, and that is why it draws such a crowd. But in it I also saw the beauty of the human body and its inner-working miracles. Maybe it is an art piece, maybe it is a scientific exhibit, either way it provides insight to the bodies that we all reside in, and because of that I saw its worth.
Below is the website for the exhibit for any pics and info:
http://www.bodyworlds.com/en.html
I think if anything, a exhibition like Body Worlds allows for the body to be de-mystified. It wasn't that long ago that absolutely nobody knew what the body looked like underneath the skin or how it worked and even less long ago that the vast public didn't know the same. Exhibitions like this are shocking and blunt, but I feel that once someone gets past that initial phase they can see truly how complex and involved the body is. It truly is a minor miracle how we work. Instead of living in ignorance we can appreciate what it takes for us to operate on a daily basis
ReplyDeleteI went to body works when it came to Buffalo in 2009. And I also found the development of the fetous interesting. What I found really interesting was all the different athlete bodies. It was interesting to see they wawy all different groups of muscles work doing different actions. Which I feel could be used to help medical personal to understand how the body works in order to do daily tasks.
ReplyDeleteI'd have to agree with Jeff on this post. Although the exhibit can be tied back to shock value and entertainment it does contain some sort of educational value. Body WORLDS is something I've actually seen for myself, and despite the fact that it was a little gross, the ways they delivered the presentation of the human body was something to behold. You never truly realize how amazing we are until you can see the anatomy from the inside out.
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