UNDER THE SKIN
A new edition of the popular ‘Body Worlds’ exhibit comes to Houston. |
A pandemic certainly can prompt reflection about the vessels we inhabit. So our current cultural crisis — defined by an incredible and deadly global virus — feels like a fitting time for “Body Worlds” to return to Houston for the first time in over a decade.
For those unaware of the Body Worlds project, here’s the short version: German anatomist Gunther von Hagens in the early 1980s came up with a process called plastination that preserved biologic tissue. Some human bodies that had run their course as living entities would be donated, and von Hagens had the presence of mind to dissect them in ways that emphasized the body’s various systems and components.
Some of his bodies would be stripped for parts that helped tell a biological story about how our bodies work. Others — like a soccer player and a man on a horse — implied motion, science class with just the slightest touch of the macabre and Monty Python.
The first “Body Worlds” presentation debuted 25 years ago. Tens of millions of people worldwide — and more than 800,000 in Houston between showings in 2006 and 2008 — have seen these exhibits presented in a manner both educational and entertaining.
Now, the museum is hosting “Body Worlds & the Cycle of Life,” an exhibit designed by “Body Worlds” creative designer Dr. Angelina Whalley, which opens Oct. 17.
“It’s our story,” says Dr. Dirk Van Tuerenhout, curator of anthropology at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.
“It’s an amazing thing to see how everything works. And how, as we all grow older, things start going wrong. This particular exhibit is very focused on our health and wellbeing.”
Below the surface
For those who visited “Body Worlds” on its two previous visits to Houston, Van Tuerenhout says “the concept will be similar.” Bodies are presented in a manner that allows muscular and circulatory systems to be viewed unencumbered by, well, skin.
“It’s remarkable what you can see when you get past skin level,” Van Tuerenhout says.
The exhibit will also include vertical and horizontal slices presenting bodies in slivers of planes and “how everything
comes together,” Van Tuerenhout says.
Previously, presentation of lungs — from a smoker and a
nonsmoker — proved an impactful visual, which, Van Tuerenhout says, “had an educational impact that I’d argue was for the better.”
He sees the plastination process as just the most recent in a centuries- old study of the human body. Leonardo da Vinci would pick away at cadavers to better understand the body, for purposes both scientific and artistic.
“It’s a newer technique,” Van Tuerenhout says, “one that better preserves the bodies and allows more people to study them.”
Pertinent to the pandemic
He sees “Body Worlds” as perfectly integrated with permanent exhibits at the museum. “Layers upon layers of information,” he says. “You can go from this to our paleontology hall to see a very interesting story about what makes us human.”
And though “Body Worlds & the Cycle of Life” was developed prior to the coronavirus pandemic, Van Tuerenhout sees it as pertinent to our present.
“To view this exhibit is to better understand how our bodies work,” he says. “It can make you think about better health, how we should treat our bodies. There are limits to what we can do. So hopefully people can see this, and it will make us behave in different ways. To maintain our bodies in longer, healthier ways.”