Experience a truly incredible scientific marvel that embodies the beauty of the human body. Gunther von Hagen’s “Body Worlds: Pulse” presents the epic form of the human anatomy, answering all of your curiosities and wonders about our scientific composition. The exhibit will be sure to change your perspective on your own body and life itself, and perhaps even alter the way you live. Be forewarned: if you are the squeamish type, this exhibit isn’t for you.
Body Worlds is a multimedia exhibition about health and wellness. It presents actual bodies from donors who willed their cadavers after death in order to educate the world of the human makeup. Scientists discontinue the decomposing process by replacing the natural body fluids with plastics. When the plastics harden, the bodies are permanently molded into active positions that express movement.
The showing begins with an eloquent animated video about our society’s constant progressing technology and its pressure to speed the pace of our daily lives. Further along in other rooms, there are exhibits of hundreds of body parts; including bones, arteries, nerves and muscles.
Some of the magnificent bodies are sculpted into positions that portray every-day movement. For example, the “Jumping Dancer” is a body formed into an exquisite position whose spine and back muscles are winged opened and exposed. “Woman Bearing Child” presents an actual fetus in the woman’s womb, showing the miraculous splendor of pregnancy. The crowd favorite, “The Rearing Horse with Rider” is an exhibition that stands more than ten feet tall, presenting the anatomy of a horse kicked up on its hind legs as well as a male human majestically riding on top of it.
A more disturbing part of the exhibit was the presentation of a tobacco smoker’s body parts. The lungs are black with tar and were hardened with a thick, murky-colored crust. To put it in perspective, the lung’s owner had smoked 20 cigarettes a day, producing an annual five fluid ounces of tar—that’s around the volume of a coffee cup. Needless to say, the exhibit will make you never want to put a cigarette to your lips again.
The “What the World Eats” exhibit includes a series of photos taken around the world that portray the diet of different countries. The average family in Italy eats mainly pasta and sauces, while Japan eats rice and fish. Not surprisingly, the United States diet primarily contained soda, pizza and preserved food.
Overall, the Body Worlds museum exhibit is a fascinating event that educates us of our phenomenal body structure in an artistic way. The exhibition also promotes good health and wellness so that we do not end up like some of the sculptures ourselves. If you’d like to experience such an epic marvel, check out the “Body Worlds: Pulse” exhibit at Discovery Times Square, located on 226 West 44th Street in New York.