When one sees a person on the street, it is unremarkable. When one sees a person peeled away to their blood, bones and muscles, it is incredible. Such are the specimens for Bodies…The Exhibition, coming to Madison next month.
The exhibits are as fascinating as they are startling. Past exhibits have included a hollow shell of human skin, a football player bound with only muscles and ligaments and a fetus floating, glowing and skeletal in a tube. However, the bodies’ origins remain murky.
The exhibit, a traveling showcase, features some specimens whose demise is unclear. In a statement from Premier, the company which hosts and features Bodies…The Exhibition, currently the human specimens come from China and are bodies which are either donated or unidentified. In the statement, Premier claims the human specimens they use died of natural causes.
However, there has been controversy regarding these claims. In two cities where the exhibition has stopped, Bodies…The Exhibition has had to post disclaimers stating Premier cannot independently verify the remains do not belong to executed Chinese prisoners.
Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster released a statement earlier this month stipulating the exhibit must post a disclaimer to the public saying they cannot verify the origins of the bodies. The New York exhibit had a similar disclaimer posted as well.
Bodies…The Exhibition has been featured in over 70 different cities around the world including Los Angeles, Barcelona and London, according to the Madison exhibition’s spokesperson Leslie Moran. Only two of these cities – New York and St. Louis – have required disclaimers.
Moran said she has not heard of any disclaimer being posted in the Madison exhibit.
The disclaimers are not the only outcry Bodies has encountered. The Laogai Research Institute released an action report in July 2010 about Premier’s exhibit, claiming the Chinese police and government have been able to use the preservation process to turn a profit on the death of their citizens.
According to the Laogai Research Institute’s report, the Chinese legal system does not give its defendants the rights that are afforded in the United States, and many crimes carry the death penalty.
“We do not know how the police came into possession of the bodies, and they say they were unclaimed,” Megan Fulker, Deputy Director of the foundation said.
The exhibit, set to open Oct. 9 at Hilldale Mall, sets ticket prices at $22 for adults and $14 for children. Students can receive a discounted price with identification at $18.
Bodies is not the first exhibit to use preserved bodies to draw crowds. Body Worlds, which ran in Milwaukee in 2008, used similar preservation processes to show the inner intricate workings of the human body.
According to Body World’s spokesperson Pamela Saunders, their exhibit has a consent process, where you can even sign your body away to science, education and preservation after you view the exhibit.
Bodies…The Exhibition does not have a consent process for the bodies that are used.
The concept of bodily ownership after death varies from culture to culture, University of Wisconsin bioethics professor Walt Schalick said, and this includes from the US to China.
In China, where collectivism is valued, the idea of bodily ownership after death is not as valued in the US, where people value their autonomy, he said.
If American bodies were to be used without consent, Schalick said there would be a “firestorm of concern.”
Even though the specimens in Body Worlds have given consent, the issue still is unclear, Schalick said. Some exhibits in Body Worlds have taken creative license with the bodies – posing them and implying relationships with other bodies which may or may not have existed in real life – and this artistic consent is not formally asked for.
“It is a little bit of a Wild West in terms of using bodies,” he said.
A Premier spokesperson was not able to be reached by press time.
