Gross Anatomy

A controversial new exhibit comes to Exploration Place. How will Wichita react?

In case you missed anatomy class in college, you can catch up during one visit to Exploration Place’s latest traveling exhibit, “Our Body: The Universe Within.” The collection of dissected bodies and specimens already has visited major cities like Orlando and Detroit, where it’s received both rave and outraged reviews.

Museums in Detroit and Olrlando that hosted the “Our Body” exhibit extended their hours to allow more visitors to view the popular display. Kansas City’s Union Station is hosting a similar exhibit until September 1. As in other cities, the Kansas City display has garnered such success that the facility extended its weekend hours to accommodate crowds. In the mean time, Catholic officials deemed the exhibit inappropriate for school field trips, and some bloggers are encouraging a boycott.

Christina Bluml, Exploration Place’s communications manager, points out that there are several body exhibits traveling the nation, and the one coming to Wichita on May 24 is supposedly the most educational. To boost the exhibit’s educational purposes, Exploration Place plans to offer hands-on activities in conjunction with the exhibit and to bring in medical professionals to answer questions.

The cause for such controversy is the bodily reality. Visitors can view 220 human bodies and anatomical specimens, arranged by major body systems. You can see how the skeletal and muscular systems interrelate and examine the respiratory and circulatory systems. Get a good look at internal systems to see conditions like colon cancer and how an unhealthy lifestyle affects your organs.

Premier Exhibitions, another company that produces similar body exhibitions, came under fire in February when 20/20 ran a report that claimed the bodies included some executed Chinese prisoners purchased on the Chinese black market.

According to ABC, Dr. Gunther von Hagens, the German doctor who invented the preservation process used in these exhibits, says he has stopped using bodies from China for that reason. Premier Exhibitions denies the claim, saying all of the bodies on display died of natural causes and donated their remains to science. To clarify, the specimens in the “Our Body” exhibit were donated from Chinese medical schools and research facilities to promote education and research.

The bodies are frozen in time via a form of scientific preservation called plastination, which replaces bodily fluids with reactive plastics that are hardened to leave a durable anatomic specimen that lasts forever and doesn’t smell of formaldehyde. The process even leaves delicate tissues intact, preserving the integrity of individual cells. The scientific community is using plastination more often, but the process sometimes takes up to a year.

“It is the biggest exhibit we’ve ever had,” says Bluml. “It will probably be bigger than the Titanic exhibit.” Similar exhibits have a long history of selling out in other cities—both because of the controversy surrounding them and the fact that visitors can see a new perspective of the human body that only scientists and doctors typically could see before now. “I’ve heard people say they didn’t know what to think, and they were just amazed when they did come,” says Bluml. “I think a good part of Wichita is ready for it.”