‘Universe Within’ on display at Alaska State Fair

PALMER — Whatever else it is, the “Our Body: The Universe Within” exhibit at the Alaska State Fair is not something one sees every day.

One display is of a man drawing back an arrow notched into a bowstring. Another has a man riding a bicycle. A third is a man cut in half, head to toe. None of them are wearing their skin and all are real, preserved human bodies.

Organizers say the experience is educational, shows the way the body works in the real world and how diseases affect it.

There is a display of blackened lungs from a smoker. The man cut in half is actually a demonstration of the digestive tract, allowing visitors to see how food enters and exits the body.

“Unlike models that idealize the body through the eyes of an artist, the specimens in this exhibition show the body and its parts as they really exist,” states a list of questions and answers prepared for the exhibit.

In brief conversations at Our Body Wednesday, visitors seemed to be there to enrich their minds.

“I’m a biologist so I’m pretty fascinated by this,” said Todd Rinaldi.

He said studying the body in textbooks is one thing, but “I think until you see this you can’t really see the true layout of things.”

Katie and Brian Kubitskey were equally awed.

“I just took anatomy and physiology last semester, so it was fun to see it all in action in real life,” Katie Kubitskey said.

Her anatomy class was online, she said. Brian Kubitskey said for him, the exhibit made the ordinary, extraordinary.

“It’s amazing to think that there’s so many moving parts working together and it all works so seamlessly as we go about our day,” he said.

The exhibit was in Los Angeles last fall. In Alaska, it’s free once you’re inside the fairgrounds thanks to a donation from the Mat-Su Health Foundation.

Exhibit organizers said the next stop for Our Body is the Arizona State Fair, but the exhibit will be remain here for a week after the fair closes for school group tours.

If you miss the bodies, though, you’ll get another shot to see the inner workings. A different exhibit, Body Worlds, is headed to Anchorage this fall.

“It is a different show and doesn’t have the same education approach; however, it is a wonderful exhibition and we encourage people to go,” Our Body organizers say.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.