Talking Rights

An activist awakens

Craig Jarvis, Staff Writer
Raleigh News and Observer
September 16, 2007

On a Saturday afternoon beneath an unforgiving August sun, Sarah Redpath flip-flops across “Main Street” — the pristine, pretend downtown square at The Streets at Southpoint. She and a friend in high heels are handing out fliers protesting an exhibition of real bodies at the [...]

Bodies’ exhibit draws criticism
By Monica Chen, The Herald-Sun
September 1, 2007
A half-dozen Duke University professors staged a protest of BODIES… The Exhibition at The Streets at Southpoint on Saturday.
Holding signs in English and Chinese reading “Real People — No Consent” and “For money and gold, abuse human rights,” the protesters handed out leaflets by the [...]

11mall security 9-01-07
Originally uploaded by FabiolaPal
It took four minutes for mall security at Durham’s The Streets at Southpoint mall to shut us down today. We came with more people and signs. One person, offered a leaflet with information about the real origin of the bodies, said, “I don’t care. I just want to have fun!”
Two [...]

Sarah Redpath at Bodies: The Exhibition
Originally uploaded by FabiolaPal
Today, Sarah Redpath and I distributed information leaflets outside the “Bodies: The Exhibition” entrance at the Southpoint Mall in Durham, North Carolina. Sarah has launched an exciting campaign to educate people about the deeply disturbing human rights implications of this for-profit show.
It was a blistering hot Sunday. [...]

In May, I posted on an exhibit currently in Durham called Bodies: The Exhibition. At the city’s newest mall, the show features “plastinated” bodies posed to show the workings of muscles, ligaments, bones and internal organs. “Plastination” preserves living tissue, and these are real human beings.

As I noted, the problems with the exhibit are numerous. [...]

“Bodies: The Exhibition” may reveal intricacies in the human form, but what it conceals is gruesome. Now at several cities in the US, including Durham, the show features “plastinated” bodies posed to show the workings of muscles, ligaments, bones and internal organs. “Plastination” preserves living tissue, and these are real human beings.

But the problems with [...]