"When a body meets a body..."

When I first heard a report on the "Bodies" exhibition on NPR I was hooked. I couldn't wait until it was brought somewhere near me so I could see it. My first glimpse came in the newest James Bond movie "Casino Royale" which came out about a year ago. Today I got to experience it firsthand at the Easton Market in the Greater Columbus Ohio area. I know there was a controversy over whether or not the exhibition of dissected, flayed, and posed human beings was morally right or wrong and I know there are people who would stop it if they could. All I can give is my own take on how it affected me physically and emotionally.

I must admit that when I got in line for the ticket I didn't think my stomach could handle what I was in for. My friend Tony seemed to have the same thought. He said, "we probably shouldn't have eaten right before we came here". I think its fair to say that the hardest part was getting into the first room and standing face to face with the bones, musculature, and EYES of the first cadaver. Throughout the exhibit that was the one thing that bothered me. I understand why it was done, and I do not question it, but God-Damn it was unnerving to see those eyes without eyelids screaming at me like a horror movie. That made the experience real. There was no escaping the fact that this person once stood among us (the living) but does so no more. The little feet and hands also drove this point home (what did they create in their short time?). I was very much humbled by the experience. As gruesome and macabre as some could say this display is, it is very much grounded in reality. For all our outward differences, break us down to the basics and it is all the same. These people have simply completed the cycle. I don't mind mentioning that my eyes are watering as I type this.

I heard the argument that it is disrespectful to take the body of a once living person and pose them with a basketball as if they were in a Gatorade commercial, minus the skin (and the dignity). I am no sports fan (band geek, dungeons and dragons player, etc.) but the poses were tastefully animated; they showed the body in action, what it looks like to actually use those muscles. Each and every pose was dignified and beautiful in an aesthetic way. I took out my sketchbook when I got to the display of the heart. When is the next time I will be able to draw from an actual human heart without harvesting it myself?

One display that I simply bypassed was the fetuses/babies. I did look into the liquid containers that held the different stages of human embryos, but when I saw the shapes of the little skeletons after the first trimester and the full sized infants, I moved on. While I could indulge my morbid curiosity about a full grown being, it was simply too much to consider the loss of such a little person. This may make me sound like a conservative, but I can assure you this is not the case. I understand that we live in a gray world (not clear cut black and white) and that there are issues and elements beyond our control that force people to make life altering (ending) decisions, and I hope I am not put in that position. I do not believe that it is in our best interest as a nation to hunt these people down and condemn them to death (as some zealots would, at the same time they try to eliminate the welfare system) but, on an afternoon of discovery, and just hanging out with a friend, I could not bring myself to face such issues.

I think it is safe to say that my companion did not have the same experience in the exhibition that I had. It just wasn't "his thing", and it may not be yours either, but if you can believe the observations of a hopeful cynic, I think that you will find the "Bodies Exhibition" to be a very rewarding experience.