Communing with the Dead

Just in time for Halloween, PhD student Aisling Reid reports on her recent visit to the Body Worlds Vital exhibition in Newcastle…

The Body Worlds Vital exhibition, currently on show in Newcastle’s Life Science Centre, offers a fascinating insight into the anatomical structures of the human body, as well as society’s changing attitudes towards death and decay. The exhibition includes an extensive collection of real human bodies, skeletons and organs which have been donated to the Institute for Plastination, founded in 1993 by the German anatomist, Dr Gunter Von Hagens. The donated bodies are preserved through a chemical treatment, or plastination, by which the tissue’s water and fat are replaced with polymers and effectively become ‘plastic’. Von Hagen’s technique has brought anatomy out of the medical lab and into the public forum, allowing ordinary people to see for themselves the matter from which they are made. In celebration of the exhibition, the talented artist and researcher Rachael Allen ran a series of sketching workshops which enabled anatomical enthusiasts to look closely at the muscle fibres and make their own drawings. The drawing sessions were supplemented by the expertise of the anatomist Iain Keenan of Newcastle University, who described in detail the structure and function of various muscle groups.  Allen and Keenan recently collaborated on a research project which investigated the benefits of drawing in anatomy education based on the ORDER technique (Observe-Reflect-Draw-Edit-Repeat). Their results found that drawing is an invaluable means of experiential learning which is both inexpensive and enjoyable.

As well as the drawing sessions, the LifeCentre also hosted two fascinating lectures from the cultural historian Gail Nina Anderson and the American author Paul Koudounaris. Anderson’s lecture surveyed the representation of death in art throughout history, from Mantegna’s fifteenth century depiction of Christ’s corpse, to the more recent work of Damien Hirst, Andres Serrano and Walter Schels. Particularly interesting were her comments on the work of the London-based photographer Nadav Kander, who in 2010 was commissioned to create a series of adverts for the Saint John Ambulance service. Much like Victorian post-mortem photographs, or even Lucas Cranach the Younger’s portrait of Martin Luther, the subjects in Kander’s photographs initially look like they are asleep. An accompanying text however, explains that each person has died in a situation where first aid could have saved them. The photos appeared in the Metro trains where they encouraged commuters to think about mortality in their daily commute.

The lecture by Paul Koudounaris, author of Heavenly Bodies, was equally as interesting and explored cultural attitudes towards death.  While there is currently a tendency to regard dead people as defunct members of society, Koudounaris demonstrated that this has not always been the case. Palermo, for example, is home to the world’s largest collection of mummies; dead family members are displayed in rows and until quite recently, children would be taken to meet their deceased relatives. Within this cultural context, the dead were perceived to be both socially and religiously active. Interaction with the dead as potent members of society is still the norm in Bolivia, where they annually hold the Dia de los Natitas on the 8th November.  During the festival, thousands of Bolivians carry their ancestor’s skulls to be blessed at the local church.  Koudounaris described how Bolivians treat the skulls as if they were alive; many were wrapped up from the cold in hats and scarves, others had sunglasses on to protect them from the sun and most of them were given cigarettes to smoke, as a year is a long time to go without a smoke in Bolivia. With all of this in mind, we can perhaps reflect anew on our own interactions with the dead at Halloween time and ponder why has death and its discussion become socially unacceptable?

N.B. For those of you interested in sculptural anatomy, Belfast based artist Sandra Robinson regularly runs sculpture workshops at the Crescent Arts Centre in Belfast. Her techniques are the same as those used by forensic artists to reconstruct the faces of unidentifiable bodies. Taking a skull as a base, the muscles are layered one on top of one another to gradually construct the complex muscle structure of the face. The finished product is a three dimensional bust to which hair can be added!

 

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