The Dead Bodies of Amsterdam - Body Worlds: The happiness project. (graphic content warning)
An Exhibition of Dead Bodies
Yesterday I visited "Body Worlds: The happiness project" in Amsterdam and it was by far the most disgusting and interesting exhibition I have visited in my life!
So Body Worlds: The happiness project is an exhibition where they tell the story about the influence of happiness on our health and body. Here comes the interesting part: they tell this story using only real human (dead) bodies! I know it sounds disgusting at first, but in a creepy and disturbing way it's just gorgeous.
The creator
The exhibition is created by Dr. Gunter von Hagens, he came up with a technique of plastination that preserve the bodies for decades. All the human plastinates are from people who donated their bodies for plastination via a body donation program. And seeing the exhibition you ask you the same question over and over: "Damn how much time and people did it take to make this?". Well, to produce specimens for Body Worlds, von Hagens employs 340 people at five laboratories in three countries, China, Germany and Kyrgyzstan. The time spend at one body varies from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, depending the difficulty of the procedure. The exposition was first displayed in 1995 in Tokyo. Today you can find exhibitions of "Body Worlds" all over the world and all of them have a different themes. The one in Amsterdam is "happiness" and works only with human bodies. In some other exhibitions they also display the anatomy of animals.
Best exhibition I have ever seen
I love a good exhibition once and a while but this one is just on an whole other level. The fact that you're looking at the anatomy of real dead person, knowing they lived a life, just does something to you.
You ever watched a horror movie or a CSI serie, and secretly wondered how a body cut open would look like in reality? Or is it just me and should I start worrying about my psychopath side? :D
Well anyway, this exhibition perfectly answered this question for me.
My favourite part:
As you can see in the pictures: they don't just display a dead body. No, the bodies are put in very artistic almost poetic way. It didn't feel like I was watching dead people, it felt as I was watching art.
And thinking of the precision and years and years of work that went into these bodies/art pieces, just blows me away.
If you have the chance to visit one of these exhibitions, I highly recommend it!
Price of the exhibition: €18 (in my opinion a really fair price)
All pictures taken by myself
Camera: Canon M3
There has been a big controverse around the use of the dead bodies, what do you think about this exhibition?
-> let me know in the comments below
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I am pretty freaked out by this to be honest! I found the pictures hard to look at knowing they were real people. If I hadnt have known they were dead bodies, I think the impact would have been more fascination on the human anatomy and the artistic placement. Very controversial and has frazzled my brain this morning! Thank you... I think lol :)
I'm so sorry to freak you out so early in the morning haha :D
And yes I agree, I think it's a really deep and interesting topic. I mean, what makes a human human? A body is "just" a suit we wear, no? Isn't dead bodies just a taboo caused by our society and religion?
And the bodies would have just been buried or cremated. Now they are being used for educational and artistic reason. But than on the other side, would I give my body to an exhibition like this... hmmm don't know.
Sorry to freak you out again and have a good day!
Exactly! I think the main thing that bothered me was that if I had been the one to donate my body to a cause like this, I am not sure my soul (is there a soul?) would be happy with the placements that some of these bodies have been put in! It really does make you question who we are...are we just a shell? is it just our brains that make us think and feel? Do our bodies really matter eg once you are dead, you are dead? So many thoughts on this. I guess this is how people thought of autopsy when they first started the process in greece 2500 years ago! Maybe this will become commonplace in years to come :O Who knows!
Definitely a different kind, need to have strong heart to see them 😓
True. For me it was so worth it and, like I said, in a weird kind of way so beautiful and poetic.
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