The Mutter Museum and Book Anatomy

Back in February I was able to take the bus down to Philadelphia and visit the Mutter Museum. Attached to the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, it is in the back of a college buildings, behind two large wooden doors marked with a small sign.

The Mutter Museum primarily displays its collection of anatomical bodies, bones and waxwork replicas, and only has a small selection of books about anatomy on display. The one book I remember most vividly is both a book abut anatomy and a book made from flesh itself, as it was bound in the skin of a consenting patient who dies of the disease the book concerned. Both medically fascinating and emotionally gruesome, the Mutter frames itself as an academic museum, and manages for the most part to avoid death becoming a spectacle rather than an educational dialogue. However, this interest in preserving the quiet, contemplative air of the museum means photographs couldn't be taken! I'm relying on the photographs people have posted online (they must have had a less swift security guard than mine!)

Except for making long pilgrimages to centers for anatomy and medicine, my main access to anatomical details is the same resource used by medieval doctors: large plates of anatomy printed in expensive books! The relation of the book as a portal of information and visual information to the field of dissection if fascinating. I open up a book, and can have the same information someone has gathered by opening up a body. The relation of interior and exterior works in book metaphors too: "She read him like a book", "don't judge a book by its cover". As an avid book reader, the idea of books being very person-like is not a far stretch! Inspired by my visit to the Mutter Museum, and the collection of anatomical pop-up books in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library in Toronto, I created a paper-and-acetate book of a female figure that has several layers of biological 'armor' that is slowly stripped with each turned page. On my way home, made on the bus from paper, acetate, a discarded geographic book and a lots of Japanese paste, my book doesn't have the same presence as a large, finely printed medical book, but it can be checked out of the Toronto Reference Library nonetheless, through their Artist Book Collection! Between the long bus ride and the pressing deadline from the Reference Library, my book was documented using my cellphone camera, but at least you get a peek!