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Concept
Body Worlds
Summary
Body Worlds (German title: Körperwelten) is a traveling exposition of dissected human bodies, animals, and other anatomical structures of the body that have been preserved through the process of plastination. Gunther von Hagens developed the preservation process which "unite[s] subtle anatomy and modern polymer chemistry", in the late 1970s.
A series of Body Worlds anatomical exhibitions has toured many countries worldwide, sometimes raising controversies about the sourcing and display of actual human corpses and body parts. Von Hagens maintains that all human specimens were obtained with full knowledge and consent of the donors before they died, but this has not been independently verified, and in 2004 von Hagens returned seven corpses to China because they showed evidence of being executed prisoners. A competing exhibition, Bodies: The Exhibition, openly sources its bodies from "unclaimed bodies" in China, which can include executed prisoners.
In addition to temporary traveling exhibitions, permanent Body Worlds exhibits are located in Berlin, Amsterdam, Heidelberg, Guben, and San Jose (California).
The exhibit states that its purpose and mission is the education of laypeople about the human body, leading to better health awareness. All the human plastinates are from people who donated their bodies for plastination via a body donation program. Each Body Worlds exhibition contains approximately 25 full-body plastinates with expanded or selective organs shown in positions that enhance the role of certain systems.
To produce specimens for Body Worlds, von Hagens employs 340 people at five laboratories in three countries, China, Germany, and Kyrgyzstan. Each laboratory is categorized by specialty, with the China laboratory focusing on animal specimens. One of the most difficult specimens to create was the giraffe that appears in Body Worlds & The Cycle of Life. The specimen took three years to complete—ten times longer than it takes to prepare a human body.
Official source
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