I just found out about "The Body Revealed" exhibition for the first time, and it's way too creepy. Can we just pretend that the concept of using real corpses was just a cover and they were actually just models?
*(Note on "The Body Revealed"):* *An exhibition featuring numerous actual human corpses treated with resin preservation, some sliced up and others posed in various ways.* *It has been pointed out that the human specimens on display primarily used unidentified bodies or unclaimed remains from China. There were suspicions that the bodies were used without clear consent from the individuals, sparking ethical debates worldwide.*
*Origins and Processing Background:* *Gunther von Hagens established a plastination processing factory in Dalian, China, where bodies were replaced with resin. It is believed that bodies provided by police, prisons, and hospitals within China were used, raising international suspicions that unidentified bodies and executed prisoners were used without their consent.*
*Ethical Criticism and the End of the Exhibitions:* *In Japan, it faced severe criticism from medical professionals, including the Japan Medical Association, and intellectuals who argued that it was "the commercial use of corpses" and "a violation of human dignity." Following successive movements to cancel the exhibitions and lawsuits around the world, as well as mounting opposition within Japan, all exhibitions were concluded by 2012.*
*In October 2018, authorities in Lausanne, Switzerland, announced the cancellation of an exhibition held in the city, stating that it "may include the bodies of prisoners tortured and executed in China." According to Christians against torture, they are highly likely to be members of Falun Gong who died from torture.*
I've actually been there. The exhibits even had pubic hair and eyelashes, which gave me the chills.
Why on earth did you go...? Was it a big topic back then?
Back in the day, stuff like that used to tour the whole country and was really popular. Apparently, my dad went to one too.
I went with my grandpa 20 years ago, but it wasn't that scary. I learned about human anatomy, so it was actually pretty educational.
Whoa～, so it was pretty widely accepted, huh? I found out about it from a thread yesterday and it was so shocking, so that's unexpected.
I think the first one, the German one or wherever it was, was a relatively serious event focused on displaying specimens for academic purposes. After that gained popularity, the second one onwards—handled by China—shifted toward an entertainment route like art using corpses, and people gradually started thinking, "Wait, isn't this sketchy?" I'm from the generation of the second exhibition onwards, but I vaguely remember my parents and teachers telling me, "Don't go to that thing they're advertising on TV."
Thanks. So it started out serious. What on earth was wrong with the ethical standards of the venues displaying corpse art and the media broadcasting commercials for it...?
It's crazy how people talk about it now compared to back then. When it was running, they were broadcasting TV commercials left and right. The phrase from the commercial—"The mystery of the human body... The mystery of the human body... Wait, you're telling me we can go?!"—left a strong impression. Even though they were clearly showing grotesque things like skinned corpses, the atmosphere somehow made it hard to just call it that, which really stuck in my memory. Now people even doubt it ever happened, or don't even know about it at all.
Yeah, there was somehow this atmosphere where it was totally acceptable. I only ever recognized it as a facility to learn about humans from a medical perspective.
There was talk floating around X around November or December of last year that there's even a medical textbook version of "The Body Revealed." Apparently, while anatomical specimens in regular books are from elderly people or those who died of illness, there are books published in China containing massive numbers of autopsy photos of what look like "young people who were living healthy lives right up until the moment they died."
Yikes 😨 Well, for medical purposes, I could understand it—just barely—but I still don't see the point in holding exhibitions all over the world...
Is it just a rumor that a missing announcer or someone was on display at "The Body Revealed"?
A while back on Twitter, there was buzz about how "The bodies used in regular anatomy atlases are emaciated because the people died of illness and stuff, but the Chinese anatomy atlases clearly use people who were healthy right up until very recently."
"The Body Revealed" was still pretty common around the 2000s, wasn't it? I have memories of going to see something like that when I was in the lower grades of elementary school, though I don't remember it clearly.
I watched some kind of commentary video for a class.
My teacher told me not to go.
I went for a school field trip. I remember a giant model of a brain displayed right in the middle with exhibits lined up in a circle, and it was eerie and terrifying.
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