The Dissection of The Anatomical Basis of Medical Practice
2026
Colour print from a digital image collage, glass display case with a wooden base, anatomy textbook, aluminium composite
78,5 x 55,5 cm (glass displaycase with the anatomy textbook)
78,5 x 55,5 cm (colour prints from a digital image collage)
30 x 23 cm (aluminium composite plates)
The series explores and dissects the phenomenon of the anatomical textbook The Anatomical Basis of Medical Practice(1971) through the perspective of feminist image research. The infamous anatomical textbook was at the centre of a cultural debate in early 1970s America because of its questionable approach to illustrating female anatomy with pin-up-style nude images. In her work addressing the book, Johanna Naukkarinen takes its imagery apart and reworks it in the form of imaginary health posters.
The book originated at Duke University in North Carolina, USA, where a group of male professors wanted to update the teaching materials for first-year medical students. Their decision to commission Playboy photographers Alice and Peter Gowland to create pin-up-style images depicting anatomy classified as female for the book caused an uproar. At the same time, it brought to light elements of the sexism prevalent in medical schools in the early 1970s.
In her work The Dissection of The Anatomical Basis of Medical Practice (2026), Naukkarinen displays the book in a display case and presents its images through posters, dissecting them in an analytical yet playful manner. With the help of thoracic surgeon Nelli Nurminen, she examines how these images actually function as anatomical illustrations for medical professionals. She highlights the extreme gender binary present in the book’s images and text and connects the book to earlier instances of female anatomy illustrations being borrowed from non-scientific imagery. Through archival material provided by the Duke University Medical Center Archives, she also explores the turbulent history surrounding the release of the book.
The Anatomical Basis of Medical Practice serves as Naukkarinen’s link between centuries-old medical representations of women and the present day. In her work, she treats the book as a key to understanding why women’s health remains marginalised in medicine. What significance do these representations have for the gender biases that persist in medicine today, through which women have repeatedly been depicted as erotic ‘others’ rather than as a neutral representation of the ‘human’?
Sources for the historical accounts presented here:
R. Frederick Becker, James S. W. Wilson, and John A. Gehweiler: The Anatomical Basis of Medical Practice (1971)
Elizabeth Evens: PlayDoc M.D.: Sexual Harassment and Discrimination in US Medical Schools in the 1960s and 1970s (2024)
Amanda M. Friz and Marissa L. Fernholz: The Male Gaze in the Medical Classroom: Proximity, Objectivity, and Objectification in “ The Pornographic Anatomy Book” (2020)
Edward C. Halperin: The Pornographic Anatomy Book? The Curious Tale of The Anatomical Basis of Medical Practice (2009)
Archival materials presented in the artwork are provided by the Duke University Medical Center Archives
The work in the exhibition Attractive Specimen, Galleria Mältinranta, 2026: