Photography exhibition ‘Mortui Vivos Docent’ by Domagaj Gracan opens on Friday, January 22nd, 1PM at the Croatian Institute of Anatomy. The exhibition’s target audience is general public, but also future students, in order to help them develop better understanding of human anatomy. The artist, Domagoj Gracan, gained access to the Department of Pathology at the Faculty of Medicine to photograph the deceased.
His photographs will also be used in anatomy lectures at the Institute. This exhibition is a part of a memorial to academics Drago Perovic and Jelena Krmpotic-Nemanic, the founders of the Institute of Anatomy in Zagreb. The two of them have entered Croatian history thanks to their analytical drawings of human bodies. Their work will always be an important heritage at the Institute of Anatomy and the Medical Faculty in Zagreb.
Since it was founded, the Faculty of Medicine was one of the few educational institutions that, due to the nature of teaching, gave full-time employment to professional artists. Their work/drawings were made for educational purposes. Academic painters and their medical illustrations were used in classrooms from 1917 to 2007, and contributed in the development of Croatian medicine. Today, in the Institute of Anatomy’s gallery, you will be able to see drawings by twenty artists who portrayed anatomical structure to smallest details, which was crucial for educational process of all future medical students.
The exhibition will be opened to public from 25th January to 15th February (Mon-Fri 10 am to 6 pm). The entrance to the gallery (Salata 11) is free.