I went to see Body Worlds at the Arizona Science Center this evening. I'd been hoping to somehow be able to see this exhibit since I first got word of it back in the late 90s, but I figured the chance of that ever happening was remote at best. Not only was it only touring Europe and the Far East at that time, it seemed to spawn controversy wherever it went. And knowing the uptight, body and death-phobic attitudes of my fellow Americans, and how Christofascists certain, umm… "narrow-minded" individuals had the propensity for raising a stink about anything they disapproved of, I figured the exhibition would never be allowed into this country, much less that I'd ever get a chance to see it in person.
I had all but forgotten about Gunter von Hagen's work until billboards for the show started appearing across Phoenix. Imagine my surprise when I learned that not only had the exhibit arrived in the U.S., it was going to be on display in this backwater, armpit-of-a-city!
Despite nearly a decade having passed since I learned of it, I still wasn't sure if I'd be completely disgusted or totally enthralled when I actually got around to seeing it in person.
In reality, I had neither reaction. All I can say is that it was interesting. I had wanted to be a doctor when I was a kid, and since I had grown up building Renwal's Visible Man model (and dozens of variations thereof), the basic nuts and bolts of human anatomy weren't exactly foreign to me. In fact, the pieces of the Body Worlds exhibit reminded me of nothing more than incredibly detailed plastic models. It was hard at times to keep in mind that these had at one point been real, living people.
I didn't see anything that I personally would consider controversial or in poor taste, and if anything the atmosphere in the exhibition hall seemed to be one of reverence. People were talking in hushed tones and seemed to be very mindful of what they were seeing.
What surprised me the most about the anatomical displays themselves was not the unusual posing of the subjects (another source of outrage from certain segments of society), but rather seeing the actual size of the internal organs. Some are much larger, and others much smaller than I had ever believed. It's one thing to intellectually know the bones of your inner ear are small; it's quite something else to actually see them. Did you know that your trachea is at most the diameter of your middle finger, or that your kidneys are about the size of those small, portable laptop computer mice? It was an intriguing, thought-provoking hour, but by the time I'd made my way through the entire exhibition, I'd seen enough and was ready to go home.