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1st appeared
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April 2000
"Revealing Bodies" – UCSF’s Inside Job When exhibit planners at the Exploratorium needed to get an inside look at how medical experts peer into the body, they turned to UCSF’s Radiology Learning Center. After all, the center for more than 20 years has been a training ground for students at UCSF and elsewhere to learn the ABCs of X-rays, CTs, MRIs and the full spectrum of diagnostic radiology.
"I was just an innocent bystander when the Exploratorium staff contacted me a couple years ago," said Henry Goldberg, director of the Radiology Learning Center. Goldberg not only collected numerous radiological images for the exhibit, he ended up on the project’s advisory board. The center and radiology department’s contributions to the exhibit include: a movie showing how swallowed liquid moves from the mouth to stomach; pictures of slow-growing cancer in the lungs; an image of a fetus in the womb; scans of the brain; and a movie of the beating heart as imaged by MRI. The most visible contribution from the center and Goldberg is what looks like a human robot made up of 16 X-rays – from the tip of the toe to the top of the skull – proving that the ankle bone is connected to the leg bone . . . and most know the rest of the tune. The exhibit, however, is much more than a collection of biomedical images. It also offers varying perspectives on the human body from many cultures -- from ancient Chinese, to the Aztecs, to Europeans during the Renaissance, to contemporary Africans and Cambodians. "One of the goals was to make sure that there was cultural diversity in the range of ‘bodies,’ in the exhibit," said Adele Clarke, UCSF professor and chair of UCSF’s Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences. She, too, served on the exhibit’s advisory board, and her statement – "human beings are dense, messy and highly varied" – is quoted in promotions and press releases for the exhibit. Other UCSF members were also called on for their expertise. Guenter Risse, UCSF professor, History and Health Sciences, was one of a select group of exhibit reviewers. Developers of the exhibit made many research visits to the UCSF Library’s Archives/ Special Collections section. The section loaned to the Exploratorium its model and information about the first stethoscope, and the exhibit acknowledges Robin Chandler, who heads the Library’s Special Collections. The Exploratorium is located inside the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco's Marina District. Museum admission is as follows: members free; adults (18-64) $9; university students (with ID) $7; seniors (65+) $7; people with disabilities $5; youth (6-17) $5; children 3-5 $2.50; children under 3 free. The first Wednesday of each month is free. The Exploratorium’s hours (until Memorial Day), are Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m, (Wednesdays until 9 p.m.). It is closed Mondays. From Memorial Day through Labor Day, the Exploratorium is open seven days a week.
Links: Exploratorium press release on Revealing Bodies UCSF Radiology Learning Center Source: Andy Evangelista |
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And
now, the hundreds of daily visitors to San Francisco’s museum of science,
art and human perception are getting a glance, too, of the images scrutinized
by experts who determine if bones and organs are healthy or not. The
Exporatorium’s "Revealing Bodies" is a collection of more
than 150 snapshots, models, anatomical depictions, art works and interactive
displays that explain how the human body has been viewed over centuries.
The exhibit opened last month and will remain until Sept. 4.