Bottled Horror?

At the Huntarian Museum at Glasgow university there  were lots of bottled preserved human body parts. I was not sure if photography was allowed…

Hand with cancerous growth Huntarian museum Glasgow 2013


Well, I could not resist some of the gruesome exhibits, and I had come a long way to see this collection, so I am afraid I took some sneaky shots with my phone. Obviously the light and composition were not as I would have liked, but I think the wonky angles and reflected windows add a sense of covert, secret documentation which adds flavour to them.

The hand looks so elegant and vulnerable in that jar. As if was gently resting across her lap.

I cannot help but think about how the woman who lost it felt and how she covered her stump and how long she survived after it was amputated??? Any way, looking at this exhibit reminds us that we are also vulnerable and susceptible to cancer, so it is uncomfortable and abject subject matter. I took away some of that immediate repulsion:

         

My eye seem to be drawn to the skin round the thumb nail -Barthes'  'Punctum'?

I think it looks as if she has been in the bath too long, but am also reminded that the hand is disintegrating after over 100 years in formaldehyde. The white, unnatural colour and texture remind me too that this is a long-dead body part.

                                Human Placenta, Huntarian, Glasgow(2014)

The placenta image makes the object unrecognisable from the original, which takes away some of the unease and disgust. The tangled and twisting veins and arteries that once worked so hard to sustain a life, still look powerful and strong. Once you know the subject of this image, there is a sense of sadness and possible loss. did the baby survive? Was it healthy? Or did it get bottled and end up sitting on the shelf next to its original source of life and sustenance?

                                                                                   Swollen Hand, Huntarian Glasgow(2014)

This image has great resonance with me as I contracted septicemia when I was gardening and had three operations to save my hand. At the time I would have been happy to have it cut off to free me of the incredible pain!

Initially, the hand is not recognisable as a human hand, but once you read the label it becomes evident and more horrific. The distortion and the way the flesh has been cut into so you can see the depth of swelling make this an abject image. The way the skin on the finger tips has puckered reminds us all of how our own fingers look after too long in the bath. The sharp contrast of the warm comforting bath with this cold, eerie, sealed  bottle adds to the sense of hopelessness, loss and death. I have emphasised the callous and clinical deep cut into the flesh of the hand, making it a central feature of the image. I have kept it simple and multiplied the sections of the image only four times so that, with close examination, the true subject of the image shows itself to you in all its gory detail.