A traveling exhibition featuring eight full plastinated human bodies and more than 100 real human organs is set to open at the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium on October 2, running through November 29. The show, called Bodies - The Science Within, arrives in the historic downtown venue with organizers pledging that every specimen was obtained ethically, not through coercion or criminal activity.
General admission runs $24 for adults and $12 for children, with seniors and veterans paying $20.50, according to The Sacramento Bee. Those prices run slightly higher than what the exhibit charged during its U.S. debut in Denver earlier this year, where adult tickets were $20 and children's tickets were $10, per Visit Denver. After Sacramento, the exhibit is scheduled to move on to Spokane, Washington.
The exhibition is organized around eight themed galleries covering systems like respiration and movement, and it includes lessons on basic anatomy — including an explanation for why one human lung is larger than the other. The specimens are preserved through plastination, a technique in which body fluids and soluble fats are replaced with liquid polymers such as silicone rubber or epoxy resin inside a vacuum chamber, according to Body Worlds. Preparing a single full-body specimen for plastination can take between 500 and 1,000 hours of manual labor before the polymer impregnation even begins.
Not Affiliated With Body Worlds, Despite Similarities
Plastination was invented by German anatomist Gunther von Hagens, whose Body Worlds exhibition first debuted in 1995 and has faced its own allegations over the years that some cadavers belonged to prisoners or homeless people, according to the seed reporting. Bodies - The Science Within is not affiliated with Body Worlds, the Bee reports, though the two shows use the same underlying preservation science and cover similar ground.
Organizers of Bodies - The Science Within say their specimens were provided by organizations certifying donation for scientific and educational use, and that none were obtained through coercion, criminal activity, or unethical practices, per an official press release. That assurance echoes a broader, long-running debate in California over how commercial human-remains exhibitors document consent. In September 2008, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed Assembly Bill 1519, a bill that would have made California the first state to require such exhibitors to provide documented proof of consent from decedents or next of kin, according to California Legislative Information.
A Global Tour Lands in a Century-Old Sacramento Landmark
Before making its North American debut in Denver, Bodies - The Science Within toured more than 60 cities across Central America, South America, and Europe, drawing more than 5 million visitors worldwide, according to Visit Denver. The tour is produced by Aurea Exhibitions, a company established in 2006 that also books traveling shows on famous artists, dinosaurs, and history, including Da Vinci The Exhibition. Aurea also offers free downloadable educational guides designed to help teachers and homeschool families connect the exhibition's anatomy displays to elementary and high school science curricula.
The exhibit will be housed at 1515 J Street inside the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium, a 3,849-seat venue completed in 1926 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. The auditorium was originally built as a monument to Sacramento County veterans of World War I and the Spanish-American War, according to background compiled on Wikipedia. It now operates as part of the city's SAFE Credit Union Convention and Performing Arts District, an entertainment complex whose events contribute more than $700 million annually to the regional economy, per SAFE Credit Union.
The Bee's report on the exhibit was written by Anne Ewbank, a California native and Occidental College and Yale University graduate who previously covered food and culture at Atlas Obscura before joining the paper as a service journalist and food reporter.
