Beauty between death and decay

The Ponderer

It’s fair to say that Body Worlds 2, now showing at the Ontario Science Centre, is creating a stir.

“Whenever we previously had a media event, we’d be lucky to get 50 RSVP’s,” media relations officer Alicia Stanton said. “This time we got more than 80.”

What’s the fuss? Body Worlds 2 is an exhibit of more than 30 complete human cadavers, each preserved by a process called plastination. Plastination, invented by Dr. Gunther von Hagens in 1977, replaces the bodily fluids and fat in a corpse with a plastic polymer, eternally preserving the body. The implications for medical research are staggering, but Dr. von Hagens has a different agenda.

“I see myself as an educator of the laity,” said the University of Heidelberg professor. “This exhibit is for the farmer with missing teeth, or the mother with her bags of groceries. I, as a physician, want people to learn about the body, so that they come to better lifestyle choices.”

Several stations demonstrate the consequences of abusing one’s body. One display shows three pairs of preserved lungs; the first pair is healthy. The second, black with tar and cancerous growths, is from a constant smoker. The third pair, almost identical to the second, is from a miner who inhaled coal dust all his life.

Another display, entitled ‘Suicide by Fat’, shows a cross-section of a 300lb man, next to his 120lb counterpart. The obese man’s heart is enlarged and visibly damaged from the vast mounds of fat he carried in life. The accompanying description mentions the donor died of heart failure at age 50.

For von Hagens, the exhibit is artistic as well as educational.

“I am a scientist who embraces art,” said the former ballroom dancer. “For me, this is aesthetic anatomy: the beauty of a body suspended between death and decay.”

Several displays toy with this conceit: ‘Yoga Lady’ shows a plastinated woman in a yoga pose, showing off her impressively toned musculature. ‘Death Spiral: Elegance on Ice’ features two plastinates, locked in the classic ice-dancing pose. Behind a black curtain stands ‘Beauty’ - a young woman with opened belly, showing a five-month-old fetus nestled in her womb. The only jarring element is her opened thoracic cavity, showing the black mass of smoker’s lung.

Woman Bearing Life

During the press conference, Dr. von Hagens points out several cross sections of human legs: “They are as beautiful as a church window.”

Body Worlds 2garners intense reactions. Some visitors knelt in front of the plastinates, as if they were in church. Others spoke in hushed tones, giggling nervously as they stared at the displays.

Each plastinate achieves a curious dignity, even when they expose their innermost depths. Some of them even consciously echo Auguste Rodin’s ‘The Thinker’; one display features a man staring at a brain that is made up solely of arteries. Another, entitled ‘The Drawer Man’, shows parts of a plastinate’s body protruding from his body, like drawers. It’s a René Magritte painting come to life.

Around the displays are banners containing philosophical quotes from various sources. One is from German philosopher Immanuel Kant: “What can I know? What should I know? What may I hope for? What is man?”

All the plastinates are from donated corpses. Each donor answers 53 questions before they are accepted. Living donors have yearly meetings, where they get to know one another.

“Dead people have no lobby,” said von Hagens, “but plastinates have a lobby.” The only non-donated plastinates are the series of fetuses, which came from old displays.

Dr. von Hagens claims he personally knew half the plastinates.

“I even plastinated my best friend, when he died of kidney failure,” he said. “And he is on display here today.”

Dr. von Hagens bristles at the memory of a dispute with German newsmagazine Der Spiegel, which claimed he used unclaimed corpses in his exhibits.

“We successfully sued them for 250,000 Euros,” he said.

Dr. von Hagens is so devoted to his art he is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice.

“I myself am a donor,” he said, “and I look forward to one day being a plastinate on display.”

Yoga Lady

Body Worlds 2 runs from Sept. 30, 2005 to Feb. 26, 2006 at the Ontario Science Centre; for more information call (416) 696-1000 or visit the OSC website - www.osc.on.ca ; for more information on all things Plastination visit www.bodyworlds.com

Images courtesy Institut fuer Plastination, Germany