Lifelike body parts to highlight Museum of Science exhibit
‘Body Worlds’ is high on science, controversy
“Sensationalistic” is a word rarely associated with the Buffalo Museum of Science, a serious, 148-year-old repository of natural science artifacts and information with a monumental stone exterior to match.
But that term has been used to describe the exhibit coming to the Humboldt Parkway institution in July: “Body Worlds & the Story of the Heart,” one of several controversial displays of “plastinated” cadavers and body parts that have mesmerized millions around the globe since the first version debuted in 1995.
The exhibit opening at the museum July 9 and continuing through Oct. 4 will be the first New York State booking for the “Body Worlds” series.
“Body Worlds & the Story of the Heart” focuses on the the locomotive, nervous, reproductive, digestive and cardiovascular systems.
“Lifelike and dramatic poses of full-body specimens and detailed presentation of organs and body parts” provide insights into the structure and function of healthy and unhealthy bodies, organizers said.
The exhibit features a special presentation on the heart, revealing through the “lenses of anatomy, cardiology, psychology and culture” how the four-chambered muscle nourishes, regulates and sustains life.”
The Museum of Science jumped at
the chance to bring the exhibit here because “Western New York wants and deserves the same type of world-class, educational and cultural opportunities as other major world cities,” said Mark D. Mortenson, president and chief executive officer.
Besides being “very compelling and visually fascinating,” the exhibit is particularly relevant to Buffalo, which has among the highest heart disease rates in the nation, said Dr. Jay I. Pomerantz, senior vice president and chief medical officer of BlueCross BlueShield of Western New York and a museum director.
The health insurer and M&T Bank are sponsoring “Body Worlds.”
If the subject matter isn’t shocking enough, the sticker price may be. General admission will be $22 for adults, $19.50 for senior citizens 62 and older and $16 for children 3 to 18, as well as students and service members. Regular admission is $5 to $7.
The “Body Worlds” series is the brainchild of German anatomist Gunther von Hagens, who in 1978 invented plastinization, a process that replaces water and other fluids with plastic, thus preserving dead tissue indefinitely.
Von Hagens has long maintained that the purpose of the exhibit is to raise people’s awareness of their own fragility so they take better care of their health.
But critics, including the Catholic Church, counter that the displays are sensationalistic and offend human dignity. The version staged in Berlin in 2001 catered to “public lust for sensation,” a local priest said then.
When the original “Body Worlds” traveled in Europe and Asia, religious leaders condemned it as “trampling on the human rights” of the dead and demanded that the plastinated corpses be buried. When the exhibit went to Edinburgh in 2003, a Scottish parliamentarian accused von Hagens of crass self-promotion.
Another von Hagens exhibit, “Body Worlds the Brain — Our Three Pound Gem,” is currently at the San Diego Museum of Natural History.
Log into MyBuffalo to post a comment
MyBuffalo is the new social network from Buffalo.com. Your MyBuffalo account lets you comment on and rate stories at buffalonews.com. You can also head over to mybuffalo.com to share your blog posts, stories, photos, and videos with the community. Join now or learn more.
Reader comments