NATIONAL MUSEUM OF HEALTH AND MEDICINE ADDS NEW INSTALLATION TO "HUMAN BODY, HUMAN BEING" EXHIBITION

The National Museum of Health and Medicine has opened "Suspended Self-Portrait," an interactive sculpture that displays the human body in an unusual perspective. Created by artist Carolyn Henne of Richmond, Va., "Suspended Self-Portrait" has been added to the museum's "The Human Body, Human Being" exhibit, and will run indefinitely.

"Suspended Self-Portrait" consists of 89 long sheets of clear vinyl, which are hung about an inch apart. On each piece of vinyl Henne painted a single cross section of the human body. Henne created these cross sections by first molding her own body and then cutting the sculpture into what she calls "tiles." By working with these, she was able to determine the outlines of her own cross-sections. She then fitted the internal information from the Visible Human female dataset to her own corresponding cross sections. Henne painted organs, muscle, fat, and bones onto the vinyl sheets, which are hung from 89 separate steel rods set into an aluminum frame.

"Ms. Henne's sculpture installation is an important addition to the 'Human Body, Human Being' exhibit," said Adrianne Noe, Ph.D., the museum's director. "It enhances the artifacts already on display by providing a detailed look into the interior of the body. The fact that the piece was created using the Visible Human Dataset gives visitors an idea of the real-life application of scientific study and shows that this information is valuable and inspiring beyond the medical arena."

The Visible Human female dataset is part of the Visible Human Project (VHP), which consists of complete three-dimensional representations of male and female human bodies. The images that make up the VHP were created by the combination of MRI, CT, and anatomical imaging techniques.

The National Library of Medicine started the VHP in the early 1990s to build a database containing digital images of two cadavers - one male and one female. The male was a 39-year-old convicted murderer who was executed by lethal injection in Texas in 1993. Researchers scanned the body, embedded it with gelatin, froze it, then cut it crosswise into transverse slices 1 millimeter thick, about the thickness of a nickel. After each slice, the exposed body surface was photographed. The result, completed in 1997, is a series of images revealing the flesh-and-blood geography of the human body, available for education and research. The VHP can be further examined at a computer station in the museum's "Human Body, Human Being" exhibit.

"Like much of my work, "Suspended Self-Portrait" involves an attempt to portray facets of the inner self which are often unclaimed by the self that must maintain its profile in the world," said Henne, who is also administrative director for sculpture and kinetic imaging at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). "Throughout time we have understood the workings of our bodies through the scientific offerings of the day. Artists have used this information not only to illustrate our bodies but to offer up metaphorical images that reflect the human condition."

"Suspended Self-Portrait" was an element in a larger installation created by Henne, called "There's Here," which Henne describes as her personal contemplation of the present via a depiction of the afterlife. "There's Here" was on display at Artspace, a non-profit gallery for the visual and performing arts in Richmond, Va., for a month in 2002. According to Henne, "Suspended Self-Portrait" was the element of the larger display that connected the idea of earthly existence with that of the afterlife.

"Suspended Self-Portrait" was most recently shown individually at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Md. as part of its exhibition "Dream Anatomy," which ran from October 2002 until July 2003 and examined the history behind artistic renditions of human anatomy.

Henne, 43, earned a bachelor of fine arts degree from the College of William and Mary, located in Williamsburg, Va., in 1983, and her master of fine arts degree from VCU in 1990. Prior to enrolling in graduate school at VCU, Henne studied at the Lacoste School of the Arts in southern France from the summer of 1985 to the winter of 1986. Her background includes experience as an agricultural economist, prop maker, artist, and teacher. Her current responsibilities at VCU include public relations, recruitment, administering the visiting artist program, and coordinating student affairs.

The "Human Body, Human Being" exhibition, which is running indefinitely, displays preserved specimens from the major body systems and medical artifacts and instruments important in the development of modern medicine and hospitals. Visitors can compare a smoker's lung to a coal miner's lung, touch the inside of a stomach, view skeletons and skulls and a brain still attached to a spinal cord suspended in formaldehyde. There are also live leeches, a display of kidney stones, and a hairball removed from the stomach of a 12-year-old girl. The exhibit includes mechanical and interactive video installations, including the computer station that allows visitors to more closely examine the cross sections of the VHP.

The National Museum of Health and Medicine began as the national repository for Civil War injuries when Surgeon General William Hammond directed medical officers in the field to collect "specimens of morbid anatomy . . . together with projectiles and foreign bodies removed" and to forward them to the newly founded museum for study.

Founded to study and improve medical conditions during the American Civil War, the museum is an element of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. Its specimens and artifacts were the first museum collection in the country and are currently the only in Washington, D.C. to be registered by the U.S. Department of the Interior as a National Historic Landmark. The Secretary of the Interior, who has designated only 2,340 districts, sites, buildings, and structures for listing in the National Register, selected the museum's collection because of its "exceptional value in commemorating and illustrating the history of the United States."

Open every day except Dec. 25 from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., the museum is located at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 6900 Georgia Ave. and Elder Street, NW, Washington, D.C. The web site is www.nmhm.washingtondc.museum and the telephone number is 202-782-2200. Admission and parking are free.