Review: Body Worlds: The Anatomy of Happiness

Body Worlds: The Anatomy of Happiness at Northbridge Centre
Friday, November 7, 2025 to Sunday, February 1, 2026

Before stepping into Body Worlds, the anticipation was half the thrill—the controversy, the bizarro aura of Gunther von Hagens’ project, and, frankly, Gunther himself. Memories resurfaced of stumbling across this eerie Freddy Krueger type on late-night SBS after Mum had already told you to bloody well go to bed.

You’d think the shock factor would have faded after 30 years, but here in Perth—where cultural events (if we’re calling this one) often appear and vanish without a ripple—the weirdness still landed.

Ahead of the show, questions kept looping: consent, the ethics of display, whether standing in a room of real dead bodies would carry genuine emotional gravity or feel like a warped visit to Madame Tussauds. Would the humanity remain present, or would plastination sterilise death into something frictionless and museum-friendly? That nexus of art and science—that hybrid territory—felt far more intriguing than either category alone.

At the opening, Dr Angelina Whalley—Gunther’s partner and curator—outlined the show’s ethos: body appreciation, maintaining physical health, and an updated “Anatomy of Happiness” curation to cater to an in vogue emotional intelligence lens. It all landed a little eugenic, honestly, and the execution didn’t help. Throughout the exhibition, saccharine posters and inspirational quotes read like dentist-waiting-room decor, not philosophical provocation. “Dance like nobody’s watching,” but with cadavers.

We entered through a minimalist threshold—a stark contrast to the Banksy exhibition that previously occupied this pop-up space. An introductory video attempted to normalise the project but drifted straight into naff territory. You didn’t need it; making your own sense of the exhibition is perfectly sufficient.

What immediately struck me was the number of small children being shepherded through this Goth Scitech. Yes, there’s an educational bent here, but some of these figures were bona fide nightmare fuel. Early on, a body composed entirely of nervous-system filaments hovered in a glass case—ghostly, uncanny. I am, apparently, still scared of Hollow Man as an adult woman. (Also, imagine being the volunteer whose remains ended up as this rendition and not one of the more fleshed-out bodies. Brutal luck.)

The tone throughout seesawed between unexpectedly artful and outright camp. Heads and torsos cast solely in vivid red veins recalled Marc Quinn’s blood-head portrait with surprising poesis. (Side quest: Google the tale of Nigella switching off Charles Saatchi’s prized purchase.) Meanwhile, large centrepieces like the chess player or the basketballer leant into spectacle. Dramatic? Yes. Kitschy? Also yes. And, in some cases, distractingly obsessed with exposed genitalia. The basketballer, a hulking male figure leaning forward into an impossible pose, was both technically astonishing and unintentionally absurd.

Peering into body cavities felt voyeuristic but irresistible. Plastination created a strange dissociation: the bodies may have been real, but they didn’t feel real. A figure stretched open by forceps, revealing metal implants and sinew, conjured the mechanical realities of the body, hybrid and adaptable. Another, sliced Damien-Hirst-fashion into sheaths, displayed close-up remnants of tattoos and sagging butt flesh, hovering between spectacle and the grimly human.

But by mid-show, the big question crystallised: are these even “real bodies” anymore? They originated from human donors, sure, but replicating every biological tissue in plastic renders them simulations. Gone is the messy, hairy, pimply, smelly, bloody truth of the body. What remains is sanitised—death scrubbed clean.

Look up Body Worlds online and the ethics controversies surface instantly. Much is made of Gunther’s donor-consent protocol (versus competitor exhibitions with murkier, politically fraught body sourcing). Even granting him the high ground, the show failed to prepare visitors for a deeply sensitive section: a room containing a large series of foetal specimens at various stages of gestation. Additional foetal forms appeared elsewhere, including a stillborn cradled in a disembodied womb. Even as someone with an iron stomach on the matter, this room made my skin crawl. Ethical, emotional, political landmines everywhere.

And then the infant pig render! How that pig supposedly consented is beyond me. (Apologies for the joke—but honestly, that’s the point: the consent narrative is murky as hell and far from neat.)

Aesthetically, many figures were rendered in harsh, garish tones or yellowing plastics that clashed with the deep reds and moist textures you’d expect of real anatomy. (Cue the driest, most miserable vagina imaginable. Truly bleak.) Educational clarity may have been the goal, but the effect further distanced the bodies from their biological origins.

A graphic on the “DNA of Happiness” strayed into pseudo-science, while a live camera feed that attempted to read punters’ age, gender, and emotional state offered an interactive moment loaded with problematics. Most visitors probably found it fun?

Some displays veered into the unintentionally titillating: Bodies arranged like an underbaked idea suggested by a first-year art student. A hurdler mid-jump with a gratuitously bisected penis. You were politely asked not to photograph the couple locked in plastinated coitus—and equally politely encouraged not to linger unless you wanted to look like a creep. These choices undercut any claim that the exhibition is purely educational.

Make no mistake: Body Worlds is deeply pedagogical and decidedly not neutral. Its visual language champions cleanliness, discipline, and a moralistic take on “health.” The bodies are tidy, behaviourally compliant, politically well-behaved.

On leaving, we had a hundred thoughts ricocheting around—exactly what you want from any show: not being spoon-fed a narrative, but allowing space for your own conflicted reactions. It’s hard to call this science or art; it muddies both categories.

And, for the first time in my life, I was actually disappointed not to exit through a gift shop. Imagine the possibilities: a faux femur paperweight, a tasteful plastic spleen. A little cabinet of curiosities to remember the ethical minefield by.

CAT LANDRO