Anyone ever go to a Human Body exhibit?

[ToxicAdam]

I've had chances to go to it in the past, but always found other shit to do. It was in Vegas, it was in Cleveland, it was in Pittsburgh, it was in NYC. But I either didn't really want to spend 24 bucks to see taxidermied people in odd positions or didn't have the time. But, I was in the Columbus science center this past weekend and they had a member price of 6 dollars to go see it, so I couldn't pass it up.

It was actually very cool. Not the actual deceased people in awkward poses, but the display cases in the center of the aisles that had all the different organs and body parts seperated. You get to really see what a diseased liver/lung looks like. You get to really see what the testes look like. Even the small inner ear bones and parts are there for display. There was an entire subsection dedicated to the brain and it had different brains in different various states of age and health. One of the coolest side exhibits was the human face cut off, so you could see the sinus cavities that lay behind it.


I guess there is a creepy factor involved in charging people to gawk at human remains, but it is presented in such an educational way, there is no denying it's benefit to individuals that go.

If you don't know what the hell I am talking about, here is more info: http://www.cosi.org/exhibits/bodyworlds

[Diunx]

There is one in a mall near my house but it's crazy expensive.

[Mupepe]

There is one in a mall near my house but it's crazy expensive.

how many pesos?

[Eric P]

i heard that those aren't really uh "ethically sourced" which kind of puts a dampener on the whole thing to me

[Mupepe]

For real though.  I never knew this was a thing.  Seems really cool.

[Great Rumbler]

I went to the Body World exhibit in Dallas once, it was pretty cool/creepy.

[tiesto]

I saw Bodies back in 2006 when it was down at the South Street Seaport. It was pretty cool, there were one or two things that I got really grossed out by but overall it was very informative and interesting.

[G The Resurrected]

I too saw Bodies when it toured around, it was a interesting experience. I had seen his work before, but when you see it right in front of your face you feel something else. I wanted to see some of his more famous works, but alas the bodies exhibit did not have most of them.

[Shaka Khan]

I spent three years around cadavers cut and preserved in all kinds of states where "touching" was a requirement. Will these exhibits still have the same impact on me? Various organs at various stages/ages sounds interesting.

[Great Rumbler]

I spent three years around cadavers cut and preserved in all kinds of states where "touching" was a requirement. Will these exhibits still have the same impact on me?

Probably not, the exhibit I went to was really clinical and impersonal. Still might be a decent way to waste an afternoon, though.

[ToxicAdam]

I spent three years around cadavers cut and preserved in all kinds of states where "touching" was a requirement. Will these exhibits still have the same impact on me? Various organs at various stages/ages sounds interesting.

Probably not worth it for you. It's 25 dollars and you can walk through it in about 40-60 minutes.

I just found it really fascinating because the closest I have ever come to looking at internal organs (et al) was our shitty biology dissections in high school.

[Steve Contra]

Strip Club?  Yes, I've been. 

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Seriously don't go to these unless you want to the remains of Chinese criminals sold to a large corporation

[close]

[pickle]

The medical school at my university has an anatomy museum. It's pretty cool. I think it's supposed to have one of the largest collections in the southern hemisphere or something.

http://medicalalumni.otago.ac.nz/features/anatomy-museum.html

[Great Rumbler]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Seriously don't go to these unless you want to the remains of Chinese criminals sold to a large corporation

[close]

Sounds like that claim's a bit overblown:

Bodies from deceased persons who did not give consent – such as deceased hospital patients from Kyrgyzstan and executed prisoners from China – have never been used in a Body Worlds exhibition. In January 2004, the German news magazine Der Spiegel reported that von Hagens had acquired corpses of executed prisoners in China; von Hagens countered that he did not know the origin of the bodies, and returned seven disputed cadavers to China. In 2004, von Hagens obtained an injunction against Der Spiegel for making the claims.

A commission set up by the California Science Center in Los Angeles in 2004 confirmed von Hagens' commitment to ethical practices, and published its Summary of Ethical Review. The commission matched death certificates and body donation forms, and verified informed legal consent of the bodies in the exhibitions. However, to ensure the privacy and anonymity promised to body donors, Von Hagens' Institute for Plastination maintains a firewall between body donors' documentation and finished plastinated bodies. To date, more than 9,000 individuals have pledged to donate their bodies to the Institute for Plastination in Heidelberg, in Germany.