Fernweh, An Ache for Distant Places

Dr. Gunther von Hagens is a brilliant and incredible human. He is a physician, scientist, and innovator, known around the world for inventing Plastination of humans, as demonstrated in his BodyWorlds. and Animal Inside Out traveling exhibits of real, human anatomy models.

Hagens’ personal history is just as fascinating as his professional portfolio and contributions to the medical world.

He was born in Poland only days before his family set out for Germany in attempt to flee from post-Holocaust disastrous conditions and fast approaching Soviet Communism.

The Hagens family was held in East Berlin then moved to Greiz, where he grew up. During these years, he studied medicine, lectured on Pathology and Anatomy, fought fascism, and was briefly imprisoned for protesting and attempting to cross borders.

In 1975 he received his medical doctorate and within two years, he invented and began practicing his method of preserving live tissue known as Plastination.

Plastination requires several steps involving formalin embalming, acetone baths to remove fatty tissue, injection of plastic materials, posing and molding subjects, and the curing process which can take up to one year.

This has caused controversy almost constantly, but there is no other greater or more effective method of preserving a body.

His work is completed on subjects who will their bodies to him post mortem. Donors must complete applications and follow proper legal channels to finalize the arrangement, and the intent is to be used for research versus art for art’s sake.

Hagens is directly quoted about his mission:

“The anatomist alone is assigned a specific role-he is forced in his daily work to reject the taboos and convictions that people have about death and the dead. I myself am not controversial, but my exhibitions are, because I am asking viewers to transcend their fundamental beliefs and convictions about our joint and inescapable fate.

I hope for the exhibitions to be places of enlightenment and contemplation, even of philosophical and religious self-recognition, and open to interpretation regardless of the background and philosophy of the viewer.”

Each pose highlights certain muscle groups to show the body’s Physiology and function, serving as a brilliant educational resource for so many different fields of medicine.

Forgive my photo quality, as flash photography was not allowed inside.

View the official BodyWorlds website for ongoing exhibition locations, including this one in Berlin’s Menschen Museum below the Fernsehturm in Alexanderplatz.

In the area for a while? Follow me around the rest of Berlin or to Munich.

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