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Leonardo to Host New Body Worlds Exhibit

The Leonardo is opening the first of two new Body Worlds exhibits starting Saturday. It will give visitors an inside look at animals’ skeletons, muscles, organs, and circulatory systems.

Body Worlds exhibits are well known around the world for their breathtaking displays of the inside of the human body. Alexandra Hesse, the Executive Director of The Leonardo, says since they first had that exhibit six years ago they’ve continually been asked when they’d bring it back. She says it’s one of the reasons why they’re so excited to have the latest work from Body Worlds, Animal Inside Out.

“I think it’s a really unique beautiful and profoundly moving exhibit," Hesse says. "And there’s far and few between in the museum world so I was just interested in bringing another powerful experience back to the community.”

Dr. Angelina Whalley is the creative and conceptual designer of all the Body Worlds exhibits. She’s been working with the process that enables them to preserve the bodies, known as plastination, since almost the beginning. She says one of the reasons she is so drawn to this work is because it allows people to see and understand something they never could before.

“You, all of the sudden understand how intricately the bodies are made of, how wonderful they are made and how beautiful they are," Whalley says. "How fascinating they are. How diverse mother nature is but at the same time how many commonalities we share, even we humans.”

This is only the third U.S. venue to host the Animal Inside Out exhibit. It will run until Labor Day and will be replaced by a second Body Worlds exhibit called the Cycle of Life shortly after. 

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