Love letter to an anatomist

[ageofscience]

To recap: when we last spoke I was simultaneously so bored with everything and yet riddled with the worst anxiety of my life. It was lame.

If only for the sake of this quest I'm on to Get Inspired, I thought I should write about the thing that makes me amazed enough to want to spend the next 5-7 years of my grad school life thinking about it.

Comments

[_tingting_]

Body Worlds 2 was pretty cool at first, but then i realized near the end that there weren't any people of colour (that i can remember of). I didn't have to worry about it too much when the displays were stripped of their skin, but i found it strange that most of the eyeballs had blue irises! Some of the displays were less 'artistic' or 'kinetic' with the westernized culture incorporated (i.e. X-men and sporty displays). i think the work is amazing though! i like how they showed the comparison of healthy lungs and blackened lungs, BUT... it would be nice to see the comparison of the physically healthier person vs. the affects of fat deposits in areas of the body that can lead to harm (or is that not effective or too controversial for our society's view of our body images?) the exhibition was very different from learning the human anatomy in a 2-D textbook way or at Ottawa U's anatomy lab. it's alot less dry (and literally too) than learning anatomy in class. i've been wanting to go visit the anatomy museum at Queens U (apparently it's opened to the public). interested?

[ageofscience]

I would TOTALLY go to the anatomy museum at Queens! I didn't even know that existed.

Anyway, yes. The no pepople of colour thing is totally bizarre. He actually does only ever use white people for the full body plastinates. I can't even imagine what kind of rationale he has for that?Even weirder was that just as I was thinking, "whoa, are all these corpses from white dudes?!" my friend pointed out that there were skinheads walking around?!

I do remember that at the end they had an overlay of a sagittal slice of a person of "average" weight and an overweight person. Unfortunately it was done kind of problematically, because the person of "average" weight was 120lbs, while the person who was overweight was way more than twice that, so I felt conflicted about what I thought it was doing/saying.

It WOULD be really cool to see in a whole body plastinate the difference between someone super physically active and someone with little muscle tone. But he doesn't like plastinating people with more body fat because the aesthetic of his work requires a lot of muscle definition. That's also the excuse he gives as to why he doesn't plastinate more women. Lame!

[j_sin]

"an overlay of a sagittal slice of a person of "average" weight and an overweight person...so I felt conflicted about what I thought it was doing/saying."

Here is what I got out of that.

When you are fat, it’s not just a layer of insulation around the midsection like everyone likes to think of it. It’s not skin->fat-> guts. The fat is omnipresent in the body so that the organs look like they are floating in a fat soup. Not to mention how disfigured and displaced the organs in the fat body looked. No word of a lie that was a helpful motivator for me to start being more bodily responsible and try to get into some kind of better shape.

[ageofscience]

I do think the public health aspect was his intent, but in execution I still find it problematic. Primarily, I don't think the world needs any more messages that fatness is gross and irresponsible. Wanting to be healthy is a good and admirable choice, but we shouldn't demonize people who don't make that choice. I also think it's important to remember that some degree of body fat is necessary and healthy and aesthetically pleasing!

Also, even at 120lbs (which is obviously way less than average weight for ladies and way less than average for dudes), a person can be slim but have lots of body fat. I weigh 120 and I still have all kinds of chub and guarantee my organs would look like they are floating in plenty of fat soup!

I don't know. I think what would be way more interesting and compelling is to show someone who is say, 170 and chubby v. someone who is 170 and super buff, and what that kind of difference looks like.

[_tingting_]

it was really interesting to see a female body without the breasts in one of the displays; it really threw me off haha until i looked 'down there'. most textbooks seem to always have at least one of the breasts visible when a women is anatomically illustrated.

women may tend to have more body fat...but we have the same muscles (just less muscle mass), so it's too bad he doesn't plastinate more women. i just find that the males are glorified with their bulkier-looking muscles.

it's so interesting that people donate their bodies for so many different 'causes', including plastination!