Worden and her associates are serious about what they do, but they’re not pompous. There is nothing reverential about these photographs, and a good many are infected with what you might call graveyard humor. After all, most of them were taken originally for a series of calendars the museum issued starting in the early ’90s. There’s no room at the Mutter for euphemism or political correctness. “Some people get upset because we call Chang and Eng Siamese twins,” says Worden, referring to the body cast of the 19th century’s most famous conjoined twins. “But if anyone deserves the title, they do. They were Siamese twins. They were from Siam!” Worden wants people to look boldly at what’s in the museum. “In the Mutter Museum, sometimes the objects seem to be looking at you,” she writes in the introduction to the photo book. “And, sometimes, the objects seem to be you.” This museum of human life gone haywire will revise and enlarge your idea of what it is to be human. Look at your own risk.
