As final preparations are underway for BODY WORLDS Vital’s Saturday debut at TELUS Spark, organizers are taking steps to ensure guests, including those bringing children to the exhibit, are aware of what they will encounter during the show’s 19 week run.
BODY WORLDS displays actual human bodies that have been donated and posthumously preserved using the process of plastination. The bodies have been injected with resins and plastics that allow intricate and delicate body parts, including nerves and veins, to be displayed.
The current touring exhibit includes several models that some guests may consider inappropriate. As part of BODY WORLDS Vital, plastinated embryos and fetuses will illustrate the stages of prenatal development and many of the adult bodies contain eyeballs and genitals.
A display of two bodies fornicating will be off limits during the day and during visits by school group. The coupling exhibit will open on select Thursday evenings in February and May during Adult Only nights.
Dick Averns, an instructor with the University of Calgary’s department of arts, applauds the exhibit.
“It’s at a museum that people have the choice about whether they’re going to see it or not,” said Averns. “A lot of what we find today is that people are understanding sexuality, particularly youth, through the online world, through spheres of media over which we don’t have any control. The BODY WORLDS exhibit, certainly it’s controversial, but it does things in an appropriate way.”
A cautionary warning on the TELUS Spark website asks guests to ‘Please take the time to learn about the exhibition and determine whether it’s right for you and children in your care.’
According to organizers, all of the people who donated their bodies to BODY WORLDS signed waivers agreeing to the exhibit’s terms and were made aware that their remains could be posed in a sexual manner.
BODY WORLDS Vital will run at TELUS Spark until May 31, 2016.
