Weekend of Anatomy: Sex & Gender – Skeletons Coming out of the Closet

You are officially invited to the 2019 edition of Weekend of Anatomy! This year, skeletons will be coming out of the closet, since every part of the program will be connected to the theme Sex & Gender. Are you interested in intersex or in (homo)sexuality in anatomy or culture? Have you always wanted to make your own sexually transmitted dermatological wax face, or anatomical illustration with red chalk or silverpoint – like Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci? Are you quivering with excitement when thinking of discovering the history of the famous red-light district, or do you want to know everything about how plants procreate? Look no further! And what place would be better to educate yourself on these matters than Amsterdam?!

Check out the full program below, and plan your day now by buying your tickets! You can buy separate tickets for anything you’d like to see or do.

Friday

Opening event at Amsterdam’s botanical gardens – 19:30

This year, you will be able to join us on Friday night as well! Come to Amsterdam’s most beautiful botanical gardens, the Hortus Botanicus, to listen to two talks and join us for a drink (after all – it’s Friday night!).

Tinde van Andel – professor of the history of botany and gardens – will kick off our weekend with her lecture in search of the perfect aphrodisiac: a subject that perfectly links historical and botanical research to sex and anatomy.

Secondly, anatomical sculptor Eleanor Crook will tell you – in her lecture The Devil Drives My Hand – all about the venereal disease syphilis and the way this crippling and literally maddening infection might have influenced different geniuses when they were producing their masterpieces.

Duration: 2 hours

Price: €15 for two lectures at a unique location! The price includes one drink.

Saturday

Lecture pack – 10:00

If you think lectures are boring, think again! On Saturday we have scheduled five 30 minute-talks about sex & gender – all very different, but equally interesting.

Morbid Anatomy founder Joanna Ebenstein will open the Saturday morning lectures with the talk Anatomical Venus at the Fairground: Sex Education, Public Health, and the Anatomized Female Body, in which she connects the anatomical Venus, one of the most seductive artifacts from the history of medicine, to wax models in traveling shows. These wax models were meant to inform you about the dangers of sexual intercourse.

The second lecture, by Michael Sappol (historian and researcher), is called Queer anatomies: Medical illustration, perverse desire and the epistemology of the anatomical closet. We will look at the very sensual lithographic anatomical illustrations of N.H. Jacob for Dupuytren and Bourgery, and Joseph Maclise.

Manon Parry (professor of Medical History at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam) will continue the series with her lecture called Reproducing Bodies – Collecting and Exhibiting Pregnancy, Contraception, and Abortion.

Geertje Mak – professor of gender history – shall shed light on several historical cases of intersex; people that are born with sex characteristics (including genitals, gonads and chromosome patterns) that do not fit typical notions of male or female bodies. Anatomical sex is not as stable and clear-cut as you might think. Examining how physicians examined it in cases of doubtful sex in the nineteenth century, makes clear why.

The lecture of Ruurd Halbertsma (Curator of the Classical Department of the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden) is about sexuality in Classical Antiquity. Classical art and literature show that the attitude towards sexuality in ancient Greece and Rome was very different from our current viewpoint. In his lecture In the footsteps of Eros, Ruurd will explain all about the seemingly loose morals of the Greeks and Romans.

Duration: 10:00 - 13:30 (this includes a 30 minute break in between)

Price: €12 for all six lectures on Saturday

Workshop Three Stages of Syphilis Wax Moulage by Eleanor Crook – 14:00

Copyright Eleanor Crook 2016

Create your own sexually transmitted dermatological disaster... For this workshop you will receive a lifesize wax face to use as the base for a dermatological sculpt. Eleanor Crook, medical artist and specialist in wax sculpting, will teach you to use wax modelling and oil painting to reproduce the harrowing symptoms of primary, secondary and tertiary syphilis, with reference to clinical and historical photographs. From harmless-looking pustule to wholesale tissue destruction, your finished piece will be dramatic, accurate and instructive, and you will be given full instructions on mounting and presentation techniques used in historical moulage production. All tools and materials supplied. Please bring a shoe box to take home your work.

Duration: approximately 3 hours.

Price: €90 – all materials included

Workshop Drawing Anatomical Specimens With Red Chalk by Marie Dauenheimer – 14:00

Study of Human Bones by Jan van Calcar, red chalk drawing

Red chalk is a time-honored technique that has been used by artists since the Renaissance. Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael--as well as Jan van Calcar, the artist behind Andreas Vesalius’ anatomical masterpiece Da Fabrica--used this technique. Using red chalk pencils, erasers, and blending tools on specially prepared paper, students will create luminous drawings from anatomical specimens from the Museum Vrolik collection.

This one day intensive workshop will teach students the use of this beautiful medium, and guide each student in the creation of a finished work based on real anatomical specimens from the museum collection.

The instructor will provide all materials necessary for this workshop, and will also share finished red chalk drawings.

Duration: approximately 3 hours.

Price: €45 – all materials included

Workshop Anatomical Collage by Jazz Szu-Ying Chen – 14:00

Join Rotterdam-based Taiwanese artist Jazz Szu-Ying Chen for an anatomical collage workshop using images of the dissected body and botanical elements! Using her 2014 artwork “Do Ecorches Dream?” as a point of departure for this collage workshop - you can also create your own artwork to take home with you. In this session, you will be creating your own artwork compositing images such as Flemish still life, anatomical waxworks/illustrations, and also various botanical illustrations. All materials will be provided for creating the piece, and for taking homes safely, so please just bring your wonderful selves.

She has previously run the collage workshop in UK, Taiwan, and now it'll be making its Dutch debut! Jazz is a Taiwanese artist who’s practice is inspired by the dissected anatomy/ornamental elements and is no stranger to the visceral side of art. For more information about her work, please visit her website: www.jazzchen.com and Instagram @jazzszuyingchen

Duration: approximately 2.5 to 3 hours.

Price: €45 – all materials included

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Backstage & Museum Tours 13:00-16:00

You can visit Museum Vrolik with a tour guide throughout the Weekend of Anatomy. On both Saturday and Sunday, the first tour will start at 2 pm and the last will start at 3 pm (more tours are possible if there is great demand). When booking your tour through Eventbrite, please select your day and tour time. Entrance to the museum and a wet or dry specimen demo (in which you can hold these specimens in your own hands!) is included in the ticket price (€9).

Exclusive backstage tours will also be available again. They will start at 1 pm and the last one will take off at 4 pm. Space is very limited, so be quick if you want to have a sneak peek in our depots full of undiscovered treasures!

Duration: both approximately 1 hour.

Price: €9-18

Anatomy of gender & embryology tour 13:00-15:00

Since we have many museum pieces connected to the sex & gender theme, we have a new tour for you: the anatomy of gender & embryology tour. On this exclusive tour, Dr. Bernadette de Bakker, assistent professor in embryology and developer of the 3D atlas of early embryology, will tell you all about the workings of our body when it comes to gender and the consequences of doing the devil’s dance. Entrance to the museum is included in the ticket price.

Duration: approximately 45 minutes.

Price: €9

Sunday

Historical Red-light District Tour @ Nieuwmarkt, Amsterdam Center 10:00-12:30

There is more to Amsterdam’s most infamous district than ladies of easy virtue behind windows. Paul Derksen is an experienced guide and local expert, and he will show and tell you all about the history of prostitution, anticonception and STD’s, and also about something you would never expect in this area: its extensive religious past.

Duration: approximately 1 hour.

Warning: this tour takes place in the red-light district in Amsterdam center. The assembly point is the Nieuwmarkt (metro station).

Price: €15

The Sex Life of Plants Tour @ Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam Center 10:00-12:00

After immersing yourself for more than a day in our theme, you probably know all about sex in regard to human beings. But what about plants? In Amsterdam’s lovely botanical gardens, the Hortus Botanicus guides will give you chapter and verse about the birds and the bees of the flowers and the trees.

Duration: approximately 1 hour.

Warning: this tour takes place in the Hortus Botanicus (botanical gardens) in the center of Amsterdam. The address is Plantage Middenlaan 2a.

Price: €15

Anatomical Atlases @ Special Collections of the Amsterdam University 13:00-15.00

Curator of historical medical books, Dr. Paul Dijstelberge, will show some of the Library’s most special and precious anatomical atlases and books on pathological anatomy. The Department of Special Collections owns one of the largest collections of old and rare books. Among these are many medical books dating from the 16th century to the end of the 19th century, including some copies of Vesalius famous De Humani Corporis Fabrica. Naturally, attention will be paid to books about venereal diseases, in accordance with our sex & gender theme!

Duration: approximately 1 hour.

Warning: this tour takes place at Bijzondere Collecties in the center of Amsterdam. The address is Oude Turfmarkt 129.

Price: €15

Workshop Down to (and through) the Bone: Tertiary Syphilis Moulage by Eleanor Crook – 14:00

Syphilis skull in the collection of Museum Vrolik

This is a different workshop than Eleanor’s workshop on Saturday! For this workshop you will receive a lifesize wax "memento mori" model – half face, half skull. Eleanor Crook, medical artist and specialist in wax sculpting, will lead the class in sculpting onto this the destructive results of tertiary (third stage) syphilis both on the skin and deeper layers of the head, showing the gnawing effects on muscle, cartilage and bone, with reference to clinical and historical photographs of syphilis symptoms and specimens of diseased bone in pathological museum collections including the Gordon Museum and Museum Vrolik itself. The symptoms you have sculpted will then be given lifelike colour with oil paint, and you will be given full instructions on mounting and presentation techniques used in historical moulage production. All tools and materials supplied. Please bring a shoe box to take home your work.

Both workshops by Eleanor Crook are self-contained and complete in themselves. If you have in recent years previously done Eleanor’s dermatology workshop, you might take workshop 2 as the two moulages will form a related pair.

Duration: approximately 3 hours.

Price: €90 – all materials included

Workshop Drawing Anatomical Specimens With Silverpoint by Marie Dauenheimer – 14:00

Silverpoint drawing of a horse by Leonardo Da Vinci

This is a different workshop than Marie’s workshop on Saturday! Silverpoint is a drawing technique that traces back to the Renaissance, when it was used by Albrecht Dürer, and the Italian masters Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael. This unique technique involves drawing on a specially prepared paper with a silver stylus sharpened to a point. As the stylus is dragged across the paper is leaves a mark of silver. The layering of hatched and cross hatched marks creates subtle tones. Over time the drawing will change as the silver tarnishes, creating a lasting luminous drawing. Using silverpoint on prepared paper, students will create drawings from anatomical specimens from the Museum Vrolik collection.

This one day intensive workshop will teach students the use of this beautiful medium, and guide each student in the creation of a finished work based on real anatomical specimens from the museum collection.

The instructor will provide all materials necessary for this workshop, and will also share finished silverpoint drawings.

Duration: approximately 3 hours.

Price: €45 – all materials included

Backstage & Museum Tours 13:00-16:00

You can visit Museum Vrolik with a tour guide throughout the Weekend of Anatomy. On both Saturday and Sunday, the first tour will start at 2 pm and the last will start at 3 pm (more tours are possible if there is great demand). When booking your tour through Eventbrite, please select your day and tour time. Entrance to the museum and a wet or dry specimen demo (in which you can hold these specimens in your own hands!) is included in the ticket price (€9).

Exclusive backstage tours will also be available again. They will start at 1 pm and the last one will take off at 4 pm. Space is very limited, so be quick if you want to have a sneak peek in our depots full of undiscovered treasures!

Duration: both approximately 1 hour.

Price: €9-18

FAQ

Can I visit the museum during Weekend of Anatomy?

Sure! As long as you have a ticket for a tour, workshop or lecture you can come and have a look at all of our historical treasures. It is however a ticketed event so the museum will be closed to everyone else.

How do I get there?

Museum Vrolik is easy to get to by either using public transport or your own means of transportation. It is barely a five minute walk from Metro station Holendrecht and there is plenty of parking space available. There will be signs to make your journey easier. Please visit 9292.nl or Google Maps for your specific route.

The museum is located on the ground floor of the AMC hospital in Amsterdam.

Can I get something to eat/drink around Museum Vrolik?

As long as you don't eat or drink in the museum itself, you're welcome to bring anything you want. If you want anything else, the AMC hospital has several places to get refreshments, like Starbucks or Albert Heijn To Go.

I can't make it. Can I give my ticket to someone else?

Yeah, no problem! Just make sure to send us an e-mail in advance so we are up to date as well.

I can't make it. Can I get my money back?

Unfortunately, we cannot offer refunds. We hope you'll make someone else happy with your ticket!

I have another question. How do I reach you?

If you have any questions, tips or comments, please e-mail our event manager at s.wieldraaijer@amc.uva.nl or contact us directly through Facebook for the quickest reply. We are happy to help you out.