San Diego has been visited by “Bodies . . . The Exhibition,” but not by the controversy that often accompanies this traveling display of plasticized human cadavers.
Advertising for the show couldn't be more honest – or explicit. Billboards banner “Real Human Bodies” over a photo of a corpse that is neatly split in two, top to bottom, its internal organs arranged as if they are spilling out. Yeeeks.
Yet “Bodies” has not raised a stir in a city where folks are outraged over a statue of a giant fiberglass sailor kissing a giant fiberglass nurse – in part because you can look up the nurse's skirt and see her giant fiberglass thighs.
What's that about?
Perhaps it's because the statue was a public project, while the exhibit is a private enterprise, run from a storefront in the University Towne Centre mall.
Or perhaps it's because our city embraces advances in science, medicine and education.
Or maybe we still haven't gotten past that $26.50 admission fee.
The first time I visited the exhibit, I understood the controversy that dogs it.
I admired the intricate beauty of the human anatomy, displayed in a way that makes you look at your own body with awe. But I also was troubled to see cadavers festooned with fake eyeballs and posed as if making a jump shot or carrying a rugby ball.
I found it disrespectful, even if their expressions suggest they are having a good time.
On my second visit, I wasn't looking for controversy, but insight. So I arranged to join a group whose wisdom had not yet given way to cynicism: a class of seventh-graders from High Tech Middle School.
We met outside the exhibit Friday morning. Our teacher, Susan Battistuz, told us to toss our gum, put away our iPods and switch our phones to vibrate. I realized how much things have changed since I dissected frogs in seventh grade, and wondered if I'd fit in.
I was relieved to see some things don't change: Boys still punch each other's shoulders when bored; girls still put secrets in writing, then chase after whoever has the paper.
We walked into the exhibit about 10:30 a.m. I was the tall one with a beard.
The lighting inside is warm and subdued, the glass cases are shiny and the information placards are helpful. Most conversations were conducted in museum whispers, excluding a few eruptions of, “Eeeeeew. That's gross.”
As we worked our way through the nine rooms, the students spent the most time with exhibits that isolate one anatomical feature: the circulatory system, a tangle of bright red arteries forming a ghostly shape; or the central nervous system, laid out to create a scarecrow of white string; or the skin of a single man, collapsed in a display case like a deflated Christmas snowman.
An exhibit of fetuses, arranged by size, held several girls in silent contemplation. In the guest book, one later drew a heart and wrote inside, “The whole exhibit was awesome!!” Then she attached a kidney-like shape to the heart and wrote, “The babies were sad.”
But no one, not even the rebels who traveled in packs, nudging and whispering, lingered at the full-body cadavers, whose humanity was still unmistakable, and a bit unnerving.
I don't know if the students knew that the cadavers, all of which came from China, did not give their consent for this use. Purportedly they died of natural causes and had no kin to claim their bodies.
There are concerns, as outlined in this newspaper by reporter Scott LaFee, that the plasticized cadaver business is ripe for human-rights abuses. Demand is growing, and many cadaver factories are in the proximity of government detention camps.
Nevertheless, their benefit to science is unmistakable – six tour groups on Friday alone were from universities and medical trade schools – and more than 7,000 people reportedly have agreed to donate their bodies for future displays.
After our visit, I asked some students how they would feel about donating their own bodies for such a purpose. They were divided.
One boy said the cadavers were there to “provide a thrill more than to teach science.”
A girl disagreed by recalling an exhibit with a pair of lungs blackened by cancer.
“In a way it is furthering science, because it helps people discover what happens when they smoke,” she said.
The teacher, Susan Battistuz, told me she was pleased that her students had taken the exhibit's visual flourishes in stride and “focused on what they could understand.”
I quietly applauded the group's ambivalence; I felt like I fit in with them after all.
Gerry Braun:
(619) 542-4563; gerry.braun@uniontrib.com
