Last Friday I visited, in an open house for teachers, the exhibition " BodyWorlds, a journey through the heart " which will open in Seville until 3 May. It outlines twenty-five plastinated bodies and organs treated with the same technique to reach two hundred. The plastination is a process of preservation of corpses invented in 1977 by the physician at the University of Heidelberg Gunther von Hagens (1945) which consists a treatment which elmininan water soluble and fat bodies using a solvent (acetone) to be replaced by a resin that hardens. The results are amazing because the bodies are perfectly preserved for study. Professor Von Hagens has plastinated human bodies and many other species, in 1993 created the IFP (Institute for Plastination ) to provide plastinated bodies for educational institutions and museums. Since 1995 several exhibitions of plastinated bodies roam the world causing the shock, the interest ... and controversy wherever they saturate.
Why the controversy?, For the use of cadavers (donated Living by their owners specifically for this) in the public exhibitions and the artistic use of these as the bodies are found naturalized in various poses (talking on the phone, playing chess, stopping a soccer ball or dancing ... flamenco with castanets and wide-brimmed hat included!). Say more populist vision or artistic contrasts with another exhibition also called Bodies ... The Exhibition "of another company which claims to be more didactic and less sensational. It also adds to the controversy the rumors of the use of donated bodies are not explicitly for this destination on this kind of exposure, Von Hagens denies something for you. Von Hagens added fuel to ethical fire last year when it announced its intention to sell some of their creations to individuals, which its lawyers are studying.
Sevilla English is the first leg of BodyWorlds while Bodies ... and was exhibited in Madrid and Barcelona. The truth is that the exhibition has a great educational interest, not fully exploited in my opinion to the detriment of artistic sophistication, so I understand that the visit is necessary but, at least in young students are concerned, accompanied by their science teachers to focus exposure adequately.
PD: Some minor errors in the presentation slides, as the claim that blood cells are formed in the spinal cord ....
Photo: El País.
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