The skinless man is frozen midair on his pedestal, preparing to bicycle-kick a soccer ball. Nearby, a fellow with flayed muscles is bent forward, his own skin draped over his right forearm like a Speedo jumpsuit.
What these bodies did in life is unclear, but in death they’re anatomical showpieces for “Our Body: The Universe Within,” a collection of 12 cadavers and 200-plus organs, skin and tissue at South Florida Science Center and Aquarium in West Palm Beach. Every body in the display, which will open Saturday, Oct. 22, is skinned to reveal internal organs and musculature, and juxtaposed with glass-display cases filled with skeleton feet, preserved livers and other specimens. In one section of the 5,000-square-foot gallery, a section labeled “Prenatal” will display preserved embryos and infants who died from sudden infant death syndrome.
Jim Merila, a curator who has traveled with the “Our Body” show for 11 years, says the cadavers are educational examples of anatomy that people rarely find outside of medical schools and hospitals.
“It’s everything that goes on underneath your skin, the science you only see in textbooks,” Merila says on a recent tour of the exhibit. “For adults, they see what their bone structure is. They see smokers’ lungs.”
The cadavers are all Chinese men and women donated by a Chinese university to the Hong Kong-based company Anatomical Sciences and Technologies Foundation, which has programmed “Our Body” since 2005. Remains are preserved by replacing bodily fluids and fats with liquid plastics, a technique called plastination, Merila says.
“The body is a frail object, and deteriorates really fast after death,” Merila says. “So the plastination process lets people see the body’s organs as they were immediately after death. If you touch the muscles, they have this rubbery, waxy texture.”
The show resembles the controversial “Bodies … The Exhibition” display that visited Fort Lauderdale’s Las Olas Riverfront in 2007and raised ethical concerns over the dubious origins of the bodies. “Our Body,” a competitor of that show, is also not without controversy. In 2009, a French court shut down and banned the display after human-rights activists criticized “Our Body” for offending public decency and for using Chinese death-row inmates.
Asked whether this “Our Body” display uses death-row inmates, Merila says “Our Body” has been unfairly lumped in with other controversial anatomy shows, describing such claims as “ridiculous, Donald-Trump-kind-of-stuff.”
“This isn’t some exploitation kind of thing. We treat the specimens with respect,” Merila says. “This isn’t a carnival show. This isn’t a freak show. People are interested in their bodies, in their health, and this offers a positive way to view the body.”
For the South Florida Science Center’s part, chief operating officer Kate Arrizza says the museum has partnered with Jupiter Medical Center and Palm Healthcare Foundation, which will send doctors to discuss health and fitness during the show’s opening weekend. Florida Atlantic University medical students will also volunteer as docents during the exhibit’s run, she says.
“We get asked if this is appropiate for young children, and we believe it is, but we ask parents to use their own discretion,” Arrizza says. “You get to see things you only read about. As a science center, we are very comfortable because we made sure the bodies were donated to science. I think we’ll get great feedback.”
“Our Body: The Universe Within” runs Saturday, Oct. 22, through April 23, 2017, at South Florida Science Center and Aquarium, 4801 Dreher Trail North, in West Palm Beach. Admission is $12.95-$16.95.Call 561-832-1988 or go to SFScienceCenter.org.
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