I guess you know that we went to Tampa last weekend, right? I didn’t forget to mention it? Oh good. It wasn’t all late nights in bars with a lot of dykes and cool stuff like that, it was educational too. (Not that late nights in bars with a lot of dykes isn’t educational, because it definitely is. Michelle always learns a lot about how NOT to behave, about why it’s NOT good to get falling down drunk and then there are all of the lessons you can learn by visiting bathrooms with drunk people – those are serious educational moments, important to every teenage girl’s growth and development) Where was I? Oh yea, educational. Right. OK fine, I cannot tell a lie. The trip wasn’t about education at all. It was pure selfishness on my part. Any lessons learned or knowledge absorbed was purely accidental.
The trip to MOSI was for me. Not for Michelle. Surely not for TW, she’s been there before. Seeing the Bodies exhibit was for me. Because I want to be plastinated or plasticized or whatever the process is called when I die. I do. I’m not kidding. I never joke about death. OK fine, I do joke about death but in this case I’m not joking.
We read Stiff last year and it was then that I decided that this was what I wanted to do, or have done, after I die. No cremation, I want to donate my body to a plastination exhibit. There’s a problem though, according to the Stiff book, when you donate your body you don’t always get to decide how it’s actually used. So I have to figure out how to make sure that I’m not donated to a forensic school and left out in a field somewhere. (the little kids found this idea fascinating over the summer – because I made the mistake of telling them about dead bodies and flatulence and stuff but it’s not my idea of a good time so no – that is not what I want to happen to my body when I’m dead)
OK so now that you know WHY we went to MOSI to see Bodies, I’ll tell you about the actual exhibit.
It was cool. Smaller than I expected but cool. As I expected, by the second room Michelle was feeling "ill". Hypochondria is alive and well. Though I suspect there are a lot of people who begin to feel ill or at least feel their "bodies" a little bit more while at that exhibit. She really didn’t like the blood room aka the circulatory system room. I, however, thought that was pretty cool. I have a thing for blood though.
Here are some things that bugged me about the exhibit. First, lack of female bodies. Do women not donate their bodies to this? Is it not done, for some reason? The bodies were overwhelmingly male. Next issue, almost all of the bodies had black lungs. Does this mean that the only reason people die is because they have lung cancer and/or are smokers? By the 5th black lunged body I was feeling like I was in some stop smoking organization’s propaganda website. Weird.
And somehow Michelle and I missed the plasticized fetus room, I blame a weird woman who decided to tell everyone that her urethra is smaller than the normal urethra – at first I thought she was talking about her clitoris but no, it was her urethra and I got distracted. I should have gone back inside to see it but by the time TW informed me that I’d missed it, we were upstairs and pining away for the bicycle high wire thing and it felt like too much work to go back down and explain my predicament to the weird guy (who reminded me of Kirk on GG) so I could go back in. Oh well, another time maybe.
Now about the woman with the smaller than normal urethra – what is it about that exhibit that made people feel like they needed to share their health history with everyone in the room? Or the health history of their great aunt ____ who had ____ and this is what it must have looked like?
What was also a little scarey were people who don’t have any idea about anatomy or how things work. People in awe that the stomach was that small or the intestines that large. Or the fallopian tubes, 50 year old men and women should both know what the fallopian tubes do. You people scare me!
The best best best question I heard while in the exhibit was from a child, probably around 7 or 8. "Mama, why aren’t there any children?" The look on mom’s face as she tried to come up with an answer was good. I wish I knew what she said. I hope she gave her a good answer. Not an "I don’t know" or "They don’t do that to kids" or "Kids don’t die" sort of answer. A real answer. The kid deserved it.
Oh and to the woman in the wheelchair who pushed her way through the folks enjoying various displays, your disability does not give you the right to be rude. Nobody barred your way, nobody pushed past you to get to the exhibit first – they were there before you and when they moved to the next one it would have been YOUR turn. Quit it. That behavior is unnecessary and not appreciated.
Cool exhibit. Knowledge was gained, totally on accident of course. And now Michelle has a real idea about what will happen to dear old mom when she’s dead.
Technorati Tags: MOSI, bodies, plastination, tampa, museum,
When I saw Body Worlds 2 there was a thingie there about why most of the bodies were male. Von Hagen had a reason for it. It had something to do with not wanting to be perceived as objectifying women or something like that.
FYI – there is a body donation application on the Body Worlds site.
http://www.koerperwelten.de/en/pages/koerperspende.asp
Yea I saw that donation thing on bodyworlds website – still some question about what happens if a body that is donated isn’t accepted, for whatever reason. I keep meaning to check the book out again and pay attention to why the donation form doesn’t mean this is necessarily what will happen.
The Bodyworlds exhibit is better than the Bodies exhibit. No fair.
Seems odd to be concerned about the objectification of women at that point, doesn’t it? In fact it seems a little ridiculous.
There was more to the explanation that than but it’s really quite fuzzy in my mind. I think when he started doing it a lot of people really questioned his motives and somehow they didn’t view him as negatively when he decided to use predominantly male bodies. It’s all very fuzzy. My brain doesn’t like stretching back to something I read 4 months ago and I can’t find the explanation online.
Body Worlds is very cool. I don’t think I saw as many black lungs as you did. But coincidenly the woman with the fetus that I saw had a slightly blackened lung.
Oh. My God. I finally get that these were real people. My stomach is way too weak for this.
I did well… got 60% of the way through before you grossed me out! Now that’s pretty good for me…
And nope, I’d not go there.
I have a bunch of questions about this, but it’s late…thanks for writing this before Elie…;) interesting stuff
Monkey – I remember talking about this lack of women thing long ago but I don’t really remember what the issue was. And when I looked last night, I couldn’t find it – probably because Dave Barry was calling my name and I gave up. I’m going looking again today.
Katie love, you didn’t know they were real bodies? You really need to spend less time in the library and with that cute grandson and more time hanging out with us.
RE – what exactly was gross? The part about the woman’s urethra?
Lee – I wrote Elie early yesterday and Bodies after dinner last night. (Elie is on the book blog) Can’t wait to hear your questions.
so, I’ve had to read this a couple of times (sorry for the excessive visits which will skew your stats ;)) and I’m disappointed in the minimal info on the MOSI site but I guess there’s a death freak contingent that should be discouraged….
initially my questions are:
1 – were you really conscious of the fact you were looking at real dead bodies or did it just seem like an exhibit?
2 – you said it was small…like small how, not enough bodies, too many bodies in too small a space?
3 – how old were the bodies – as in how long have they been and will they be on exhibit?
4 – how were they displayed?
5 – what kind of people were in attendance?
I really do have more but, I have to work really…;)
did y’all do the bike thing – that looks terrifying, net or not…and bars are great places to learn things unfortunately none of the stuff you mentioned is what I learned and onle last thing (I promise) my first trip to a bar was with my parents and to a gay bar no less – betcha didn’t know that 😉
Lee – why didn’t you tell me you were gonna have all of these questions? I am not prepared to answer them and I might have been if I had known. (Blog about your parents taking you to the gay bar, I didn’t know this and need details)
The website stinks – the Body Worlds one that Karen saw is better.
1 – For me I was aware that these were real people, at one time living breathing people who were, in fact, dead. Maybe because I’m serious about the plastination thing? Michelle too was always aware that these were real dead people.
2 – Not as large an exhibit as I would have liked. There were separate areas for various types of exhibits – reproductive focus in one area, brain/nervous system in another, circulatory another etc… I think ummmm maybe 7-8 areas, counting the fetus which I did not see.
3 – I don’t know the answer to this and couldn’t find that info on the website.
4 – this could be another post in and of itself. First, there were full body displays. Depending on the room you were in, various parts were displayed more prominently – if you were in neurological, then the bodies were presented with the spinal cord more visible than if you were looking at some other type of display – does that make sense? Bodies were also posed in different ways – kicking a socker ball, at a desk stuff like that. Also various organs were displayed in cases to show diseased organs and specific areas of an organ with plates explaining how those areas “work”.
What was interesting were the “sliced” bodies. Imagine your body cut “chain saw like” into three pieces – vertically. The three pieces displayed with like a foot of space between the spaces. Then there was a body sliced horizontally and then laid out on a display from head to foot.
5 – all kinds of people – mostly white but some black and some hispanic. I am not sure I saw any asians but I might have. All ages – elderly, my age, younger adult/college age – some kids but not a lot.
And no, the darn highwire bike thing was not open. We kept sort of hanging around there and circling back in hopes that it would open.
Lee – I’m going to jump in with my answer to your first question. I was always aware that these were people. Other people I think were less aware because they KEPT TOUCHING THEM and it really, really annoyed me and I had to restrain myself from slapping their hands away and yelling at them. And no, I’m not talking about children.
While I was aware that they were bodies I was also keenly aware that they were also art, particularly for me at Body Worlds 2 – the X-Woman and the ballerina. It really is educational art.
I find the entire exhibit utterly fascinating. And beautiful. But yes, I was very, very aware that I was looking at people.
I was really impressed that I didn’t see anyone touching the bodies.
The little kids saw the exhibit a few weeks ago and E insisted that she touched the bodies and was encouraged to do so. I don’t know if she really did or what but I was very troubled by it.
LOL, denise I said I had questions….and really I have more – especially after the answers 🙂
why did the touching bug y’all?…isn’t TW a toucher in these kinds of circumstances?…I would have wanted to touch – just out of curiousity, and since y’all mentioned it, I was wondering if they were behind glass or accessible, I’m assuming they were accessible if you could touch….and karen you mentioned something I was thinking but didn’t want to keep adding to the list of ?’s….is it really art or is it artfully displayed…
Some things were behind glass, others were not. Smaller pieces, behind glass. Full bodies, mostly not.
TW is a toucher – if she touched she didn’t tell me. And she didn’t walk with me and Michelle, she walked ahead by herself as she often does in museums.
I don’t think you should ever touch art unless you are invited to do so by the owner of the art or the gallery showing the art. There are significant reasons not to touch – and in this case, it felt disrespectful to me even more than touching a Dali or a Monet. Maybe ’cause I don’t want people to touch me while I’m alive unless I give the ok, lol.
I’ve gone back and forth on the art and artfully displayed thing. It didn’t feel like art to me, it felt like a science museum exhibit not an art museum exhibit. Yes bodies are art, but the display didn’t lend itself to that feeling for me. Bodyworlds might be a better display for that. I’d like to see it to compare.
Lee the touching bothered me because these were people. Living breathing people who walked around like you and I did. I found touching them to be very disrespectful. I don’t know if it’s because of my archaeology/anthropology background or that I know people who work at identifing the anonymous dead but I think that when you touch/handle dead bodies it ought to be with purpose and with with respect. The poking and touching I saw done were neither of these.
I also don’t generally like it when people touch art/artifacts without proper protection because I’ve seen how it can damage the art over time. There are reasons why you aren’t supposed to touch it. I do understand the temptation though. Especially since I got kinda used to handling artifacts in university.
But it would bother me far less if someone touched a Monet than if they touched these displays.
What was gross? You’ve known me for six years now, and I’m certain we have talked on my squeamishness before.
I refused to take biology because there is no way I’d ever disect something. Never, ever… it would bother me first off that this had been a real, live critter.
I managed to get past needles and such because of my youngun… and body parts won’t make me squeamish, it’s real live dead (yeah, I know) bodies that would send me for a loop. Think I saw one once in Boston, and well… move along.
ok, that was probably one of the more bizarre posts I have read in blog world. Plastic cadavers and too small urethras…it will take some time to shake it loose!
haha You’re welcome! I’m that kind of woman and you didn’t know it til you read this, did you? Don’t worry, I’ll write more weird stuff like this in the future – this is the sort of thing my life is full of.
So what do you think? Would you go see Bodies or Bodyworld? Surely one (or both) of these have visted your fair (and very large) city… Would you take your son?
Denise,
I read SO MUCH of what you write over at BlogHer and I just absolutely love it. This Body exhibit sounds fascinating. I hope the mom gave an honest answer as well.
When my children ask questions like that, I tell them as much as they want to know. And the truth about it. Why would I want to re-do the information and go back and say something else?
My name didn’t show up above! I’m just all excited about leaving a message that I forgot!
Wow, a nameless stranger who reads my posts at Blogher, too? Oh wait, Mocha, wow – cool! Nice to see you here and I’m so glad you came back and left your name. 🙂
Right on regarding giving kids good answers to their questions.
Hi
I saw the exhibit years ago in Germany. Back then almost no one knew about it and nobody made a fuss. I’ve noticed over the years that all that has changed. While the exhibit moved through Europe the outrage grew. I never understood that. People found it was a disgrace to treat dead bodies like that. Perhaps Americans are less fussy about that. Here death is still a big taboo. I suspect the exhibit you saw was differet. Mine had quite a lot of women (even slices of fat thighs), but perhaps my recollection is just wrong.
I must admit that seeing the plastinated pregnant woman (with plastinated foetus) was quite hard on me. Not the fact that she was exhibited, but the thought that she was a living person carrying life inside her when she died. That just made me very sad.
There was also a line of foetuses at different stages of development. That was amazing. I know what you read about people not knowing anything about their bodies, but this was totally new to me. Soooo small.
Anyway. I see I’ve been rambling again. Just one more thought on the plastination donation. I guess you’re not about to die anytime soon. I’m not sure people will still be interested in that in a few decades and the way things are going I’m sure the world is designing quick and efficiënt ways to get rid of bodies. Medical and forensic students on the other hand. I guess they think “the more the better”, so think carefully before you fill out any forms :).
Hey Lies!
There is quite a bit of angst regarding the exhibits here in the US. The exhibit we went to almost didn’t open because there injunctions filed to stop it.
Oh trust me, I’m not signing any plastination forms til I’ve sorted out exactly what happens in every conceivable situation.