Singapore (2 April 2026) — ArtScience Museum is going beneath the skin to uncover multiple perspectives on what is universally familiar: the human body. Premiering on 21 March, Flesh and Bones: The Art of Anatomy brings together art, science, memory and tradition to trace how the human body has been studied, imagined and represented across time and cultures, from its physical form to its hidden inner landscapes.
Timed to mark ArtScience Museum’s 15th anniversary, the exhibition brings together over 160 artefacts and artworks.
They include historical masterworks from a project that originated at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles in 2022, curated by Dr Monique Kornell.
The works on loan from Getty span striking lifesized illustrations, anatomical atlases, medical manuscripts, and rare, delicate books that reveal the interior of the human body.
This new version of Flesh and Bones, expanded and reimagined by ArtScience Museum in conversation with the Getty, incorporates stories and medical traditions from Asia and 33 major contemporary artworks and installations, which offer new lenses through which visitors can view the body.
The exhibition shows how our understanding of the body has advanced through history shaped by the work of artists, scientists, anatomists, medical
practitioners and printmakers from around the world.
“Flesh and Bones: The Art of Anatomy traces the long, intertwined histories of art, medicine, and human curiosity about the body. Across cultures and centuries, the field of anatomy has been defined equally by scientific pursuit, belief systems, technologies of seeing, and artistic enquiry. This exhibition tells that story, presenting anatomy as a set of evolving practices,” said Honor Harger, Vice President of ArtScience Museum at Marina Bay Sands.
“By juxtaposing historical masterpieces by the likes of Antonio Cattani with mesmerising site-specific installations by contemporary artists like Chiharu Shiota, Flesh and Bones truly is a combination of East and West, past and present. Through a combination of art and science, Flesh and Bones vividly reveals how we have sought to understand what lies beneath the skin – and what it means to inhabit a body.”
One of the centrepieces of the exhibition is a display of large‐scale anatomical engravings by Antonio Cattani, produced in Italy in the late eighteenth century.
Cattani’s life‐size illustrations are among the most accomplished visualisations of the dissected human body ever made. On loan from Getty and shown in Singapore for the first time, these works reveal how anatomy emerged as a visual science through print.
They are presented alongside works by Hong Kong‐based artist Angela Su, whose anatomically precise yet speculative figures unsettle classical ideals of the body.
By placing Enlightenment systems of knowledge in dialogue with contemporary art from Asia, the exhibition shows how the human body continues to be reinterpreted across cultures and time.
The exhibition opens with The Network Within (2026), a dramatic new site‐specific installation by Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota.
Using her signature red thread, Shiota metaphorically depicts the human body as a system of circulation, evoking blood vessels and pulmonary pathways while also suggesting the bonds that link memory, history and human connection.
Positioned at the threshold of the exhibition, the work invites visitors to inhabit anatomy as a spatial experience.
At the mid-point of Flesh and Bones is an immersive audiovisual environment by London- based experiential art collective Marshmallow Laser Feast. Titled Evolver (2022), the work takes visitors on a journey into the body, illuminating the path of oxygen through the mouth and lungs.
It unfolds across large-scale projections within the galleries and extends to a virtual reality experience at ArtScience Museum’s VR Gallery.aas
Shown in Singapore for the first time, this multi-award-winning artwork makes the intricate, hidden systems that sustain the human body perceptible and tangible.
It begins with a guided meditation narrated by Oscar-winning actress, Cate Blanchett, and features a score by Jonny Greenwood (from Radiohead) and Icelandic composer, Jóhann Jóhannsson.
The exhibition also features important works by artists from Singapore and the region, including Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, Pinaree Sanpitak, and Natee Utarit from Thailand, alongside Solamalay Namasivayam, Yanyun Chen, Kray Chen, Amanda Heng, and Woong Soak Teng from Singapore.
Flesh and Bones also includes scientific artefacts and exhibits from Singapore, exploring Asian approaches to anatomy, including one gallery focused on Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).
Developing in parallel with Western anatomical knowledge, TCM understands the body not only as physical structure, but as a network of relationships, energy flows and balance.
Spanning ancient medical texts and instruments to charts, scrolls and diagrams, the exhibition provides an educational introduction to TCM with over 40 items on loan from the Singapore College of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Additionally, visitors will have the rare opportunity to encounter 20 specimens of the human body — 15 pathological specimens on loan from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine’s Anatomy Department and five plastinated specimens from the Institute for Plastination in Germany.
Typically used for medical education, these scientific specimens are presented alongside a display on the Silent Mentor programme, which began in Taiwan as a way of honouring those who selflessly donate their bodies for medical education and research.
Adopted in Singapore in varied capacities, the individuals pledged to this programme are regarded by students as their first patients and teachers.
Shown alongside reflections from medical students, this section highlights the empathy, respect and humanistic values that underpin anatomical learning in Singapore, while drawing attention to the ethical frameworks and generosity through which medical knowledge is formed.
Flesh and Bones: The Art of Anatomy runs till 16 August 2026. For more information on the exhibition galleries and highlights, please refer to Annex A or https:// www.marinabaysands.com/museum/exhibitions/flesh-and-bones.html.