‘Who knows the fate of his bones?’ Rethinking the body on display: object, art or human remains?

Collecting and displaying bodies, a practice giving once living people the anomalous status of ‘objects’ or ‘art’, is increasingly contested. The challenge that bodies pose to contemporary museum and gallery practice through their potent blend of attraction and repulsion is the central issue addressed in this chapter. The ethical and legal issues involved in the recovery and display of bodies have been discussed by many commentators (Kåks 1998; Nail 1994; Parker Pearson 1995; Steel 2004; Vaswani 2001). This important debate has led to changes in practice in repatriating human remains (Department for Culture, Media and Sport 2003). This chapter focuses on the conceptualisation of the body in the museum and how this enables human remains to be collected, displayed and viewed. Emotional reactions – and how these inform the boundaries of the acceptable – will be considered using experimental evidence exploring reactions to human-like animal flesh and human hair and teeth. Issues relating to the use of human remains in art practice are discussed and changing practices in the display of human remains are reviewed.