Miriam Young is a creative director living in color in Roanoke.

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Do not read this column if you are uncomfortable reading about graphic aspects of the human body or death or if you are easily offended. There is no getting around the gruesome nature of my subject -- plastination, and the multiple displays of human plastinates currently touring the nation and world.

What is it?

Plastination is a method of preserving tissue that is very different in both method and result from traditional embalming. While in Miami recently, I had the opportunity to see an exhibit of human plastinates called "BODIES ... The Exhibition." I declined. The resulting internal dialogue about the exhibit and my decision is the subject of this column.

Body as art

Everyone knows that anatomy and the beauty of the human form have been the foundations of art. Bodies are magnificent and fascinating. Their study is the domain of the arts, science and history. Generally, displays that help discern, illustrate or illuminate the body and its workings are welcomed by artist, medical student and scientist alike. The more care and accuracy and the higher the sensitivity to the presentation of the subject, the greater its likelihood of being appreciated as art.

Voyage to voyeurism

Currently, there are no fewer than five exhibits of plastinated humans on tour, each from different companies using the same process, but with different sources of, ahem, material. With the exception of the exhibits by plastination creator Gunther von Hagens, great controversy exists over how and from where the bodies have been obtained. (Von Hagens' exhibit, "Body Worlds," by the way, was featured in the recent James Bond film, "Casino Royale.") Von Hagens asserts on the Web site of his exhibit company (www.bodyworlds.com) that his is "the only anatomical exhibit that uses donated bodies, willed by donors for the express purpose of serving [this] mission to educate the public about health and anatomy." The Miami exhibit showed bodies of Chinese people, procured from a medical school/plastination processing center in China. These people did not know they would end up being flayed and displayed in such fetching poses as playing soccer or tennis. A different plastination show's exhibit actually shows a man holding a clothes hanger on which his complete epidermis is neatly folded.

Soylent Green is people!

Art has often been the medium by which artists and creators challenge our notions of propriety. Remember John Singer Sargent's scandalous portrait, "Madame X"? Remember artists using urine and other body byproducts in installations of art? So, why are there so many traveling exhibits right now showing real people, as if — to paraphrase a prophetic T.S. Eliot — "fixed and formulated, brought in upon a platter"? Is there some remarkable new groundswell of interest in science and anatomy across our nation? Who can see these exhibits and not recognize that they are looking at actual people in these strained states of artifice?

I view art and creation with my eyes, mind and heart. I didn't go into the exhibit, but I studied the huge photo at the door. With everything that had been done to show every underlying part of the show's "poster boy," I found myself fixated on his eyes and face. I was seeing this person, this Chinese man, and thinking about his mother. I thought about my grown son, far away these many months, studying abroad in China. I was disturbed, and now it is time for me to ask: Why are more than 20 million visitors to these exhibits not disturbed? Would you be?

Miriam Young is a marketing manager living in color in Roanoke. Read past columns at www.fishcards.com/culturevulture.