“Textbooks don’t do it justice, how amazing your body is,” marketing manager of the Waterloo Regional Children’s Museum Angela Olano explained, referring to the fascination and intrigue behind the museum’s newest exhibition Our Body: The Universe Within.
Open Jan. 14 until Apr. 11, Our Body invites viewers to take a unique look underneath the skin and explore the inner workings of the human body.
Spread throughout seven dimly lit rooms filled with skinless bodies, preserved organs and educational facts, Our Body engages spectators in several different ways.
The first room meets exhibition viewers with a large historical timeline of health and medical advancements.
Starting at 1600 B.C.E with the Egyptians, the timeline makes its way through the eras of Hippocrates, Aristotle, Leonardo Da Vinci, ending at 1979 C.E. with the invention of the CAT scan.
With the basis of scientific history under their belts, viewers continue through the next six rooms as if they are on an educational tour.
The rooms are divided to display the musculoskeletal system, head and nervous system, urinary and reproductive system, digestive system, respiratory system and cardiovascular system.
While each room educates spectators on something different, the most impressive part of the exhibition as a whole are the full bodies, open and exposed to reveal the inner workings of a human being.
“Just the way they’re displayed … they’re so cool, and nothing can really teach you the way that can,” said Olano.
Actual human bodies used in this exhibition are preserved through a process called plastination or polymer impregnation.
The natural fluids are removed and replaced with a special liquid designed to preserve the specimen.
Ranging from a man with muscles semi-detached from his body like a butterfly with wings on display to a mini display room revealing fetus sizes of each trimester, the bodies are frighteningly interesting despite the taboo nature of their display.
“Some people were unsure about the actual bodies but once they get here they’re in. It’s awe-inspiring,” said Olano.
With Our Body making it’s Canadian premiere in the Waterloo Region, the Children’s Museum presents this exhibition hoping to intrigue and educate.
“It’s for everybody. Hopefully what it’ll do is show people how much they need to take care of their body… how intricate it is, and how delicate it is and how it relies on us to exercise and eat properly,” said Olano.
Our Body has been introduced as a part of the Museum’s “Festival of Health.”
The second part to this festival is an exhibit entitled Germs! Germs! Germs! designed to further educate on health matters, and will be opening Jan. 22.
