The challenges I face are immense. Suffering from Parkinson’s disease is like practicing dying
Gunther von Hagens: ‘I envisage my plastinated body standing in a welcoming pose at the entrance of an exhibition.’ Photograph: Michele Tantussi/Getty Images
In July 1977, I was working as a research scientist at the University of Heidelberg’s Institute of Pathology and Anatomy. Looking at specimens embedded in plastic – the most advanced preservation technique then available – I wondered why the plastic was poured around bodies rather than into them.
That was when I came up with the idea of vacuum-impregnation, whereby bodily fluids and soluble fat are extracted and replaced with resins, silicon rubbers and epoxies, a process I later named plastination. But it was only after a year of intense research, and hundreds of experiments, that I got some presentable results. By March 1978, I filed the first patent for plastination, a technique now used in 400 medical schools and universities worldwide (although the first whole-body plastinate was still 13 years away).
In the beginning, I thought plastination would mainly contribute to improving medical teaching. But the huge subsequent lay interest inspired me to create public exhibitions – not to shock people, but capture their imaginations. The first Body Worlds exhibition, featuring whole body plastinates, was shown in Japan in 1995; next month, we will open a permanent museum at the London Pavilion.
Now, at the age of 73, my body is breaking down. I have Parkinson’s disease and the challenges I face are immense. Suffering from Parkinson’s is like practising dying. My hands tremble, my speech is faltering and my movements are uncoordinated. I have lost skills I had, and they will never return. I can’t play my beloved violin any more. The doctors prognosticated that I would end up in a wheelchair, but fortunately I can still walk and move around freely. The biggest obstacle is my speech; I now avoid speaking in public.
I always wanted to be plastinated. Among the 17,000 who have signed up to donate their bodies for plastination are my wife, Angelina, who has been working with me for more than 30 years, and my son Rurik, who takes care of our finances. After years of physical decline, I feel better having transferred many of my stressful duties to my wife and son. I have started to actively fight the disease, and changed my attitude towards it. My strong will is my most powerful gift. I feed my body well, and give it enough sleep and exercise. I focus on new projects that keep my brain cells alive.
I want to live longer than my father, who just celebrated his 101st birthday. After my death, we have agreed that Angelina will plastinate me. I could envisage my plastinated body standing in a welcoming pose at the entrance of an exhibition, or rendered into slices and distributed across various sites. The ultimate decision rests with her. What can be done with plastination is dependent on many factors; if I were injured in a car accident, for example, slices would be unlikely to be an option.
Although I approach the body as a modernist and a minimalist, I feel that my role is to carry on the tradition of Renaissance anatomists. This is to reject the taboos and convictions people have about death and the dead, our joint and inescapable fate.
I want my work to live on. It gives me great satisfaction to know that I will continue to teach after my death. Sometimes, at this stage of my life and illness, I wish I could suspend my convictions and embrace the idea of a divinity and an afterlife. Kierkegaard said that religion was the great consolation of his life. But I don’t think there is a continuum beyond death. Every deceased body I have seen has shown me the absence of the soul. I don’t believe anything is left of us after we die.
My critics allege that I violate the sanctity of the dead. I say that there is no violation in giving a deceased human a postmortal identity– and decomposition is not sacred, either. The postmortal body is confrontational. It forces us to set aside our unconscious and conscious repudiation of death; all of us die a little every day.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/sep/21/i-want-to-be-plastinated-when-i-die
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