A plastinated-corpse exhibition that shows preserved human bodies in “penetrative sexual positions” is heading to London this week, and an anatomist has questioned whether the people who donated their remains really knew what they were signing up for.
Body Worlds: The Anatomy of Happiness opened in Sydney last week and arrives in the UK on Friday 25 September. Alongside the sexual poses, the “real specimens” are displayed horse riding and playing basketball, preserved through plastination — a vacuum process using specially developed reaction plastics, invented by Dr Gunther von Hagens in 1977.
The organisers say the show has visited more than 175 cities and drawn over 58 million visitors. Each specimen takes roughly 1,500 hours and about 12 months to prepare. More than 21,000 people worldwide have signed up to the body donation programme, which is now at full capacity.
According to its website, the exhibition “interprets the latest research and findings by social scientists on how happiness is determined and presents medical findings about the impact of happiness on the body and mind”, and will “teach audiences what parts of their anatomy are involved in happiness and how positive or negative emotions can affect the entire body”. It adds that “all specimens were donated specifically for plastination”.
Consent forms from the Institute for Plastination cover “teaching and research”, stating: “My consent includes the preparation of permanently preserved teaching specimens from my donated body. It also extends to photographs, videos and any other images or depictions of such specimens, in any medium or format, in perpetuity.” Donors can separately authorise public exhibition, choose anonymity, and consent to being turned into “an anatomical work of art”.
Dr Joyce El-Haddad, a senior lecturer in anatomy and histology at the University of New South Wales who also describes herself as an ethicist, was invited to attend and initially expected a “very interesting” day out. Writing on Instagram, she noted the show “explores topics such as health, disease, exercise, stress, ageing, and wellbeing using whole-body displays (in various positions), organs, and body slices”, then asked: “How much can you actually get out of an exhibition intended to display health, disease, ageing, and wellbeing without the stories of lived experiences and individual context to conceptualise the science in front of you?”
Without that context, she argued, visitors are left to “construct their own narratives and make their own assumptions” about the lives of the dead.
Her sharpest objection is the sexual displays. “Informed consent is not a tick box exercise and we need to think about: Who donated these bodies? What did they understand they were consenting to?” she wrote. “How specific was the consent process? Was every form of display consented for differently? What responsibilities remain after consent has been given? Respect, dignity, transparency, and context do not disappear simply because somebody signed a form.”
She also questioned what children take away from it, and pointed out that historic displays of human remains in “cabinets of curiosity” are now widely condemned, asking: “What shields modern day human body exhibitions from the same condemnation?” She said she hoped her post would help people make an “informed decision”.
Reactions online have been split between “unsettling” and “fascinating”. One Reddit user wrote: “I can’t comprehend that those people were once living and walking around like us.” Another said: “I couldn’t do a rat dissection in high school, let alone see a human like that.” Others were more positive: “I think it gets people thinking about how complex our bodies and body systems really are,” one said, while another wrote: “I love understanding how things work and are made up. I’d love my body to go there when I die.”
The format has drawn controversy before. In 2018, Kim Erick claimed a plastinated body called the “Thinker” at the Real Bodies exhibition in Las Vegas resembled her late son Chris. “I was actually looking at pictures of my son’s skinned, butchered body. It is gut-wrenching,” she said, adding it was “so unbelievably painful to look at”. The company said there was “no factual basis for these allegations” and that the “referenced specimen cannot be associated with the individual named in these claims”.
LADbible has contacted Body Worlds for comment.