Body Worlds and the Brain is, to me, the perfect intersection of art and science. To sum it up in a sentence it is essentially human bodies preserved by a patented process called Plastination and displayed to teach the public, in a somewhat unorthodox and thoughtful way, all about how our bodies work. The fact that this preservation process which was created in 1977 by a physician (Gunther Von Hagens) in order to preserve specimens for anatomy courses has sparked one of the world's most engaged public exhibits ever, traveling to galleries and science centres like Science World and being exposed to tens of millions of people around the world, is such an awesome thing. We are incredibly lucky to have Body Worlds come back to Vancouver and though walking through this exhibit may make some uneasy, for most it fills us with wonder and appreciation for our own bodies.
It's on for a limited time at Science World at Telus World of Science and is ending shortly after the winter break. An insider's tip is that you might want to visit ASAP to have the best possible visitor experience and beat the winter break out-of-school crowds!
Over the next few days I'll be sharing some of the things that I learned/appreciated at the exhibit. Some of the imagery may not be for the faint of heart so I'll be hiding some of their contents past the jump but if I didn't tell you that below you were looking at a plastinated human body sliced a quarter inch thick, you might not ever know. It's a Mythbusters-esque part of the exhibit showing that it is true that a human's height is roughly the same as their arm's reach.
Learn all about the exhibit at ScienceWorld.ca/BodyWorlds
