PLASTER CASTS. During this class we will draw plaster casts of various parts of human body using graphite, pastels, ink and charcoal. 

Artist Laimdota Malle: “This time we will explore the structure of body parts not based on the idealised canons of the Ancient Greeks, rather from the point of view of asymmetry and uniqueness. Plaster casts allow us to explore impressions of living beings that are frozen and immobile. Charcoal, ink and graphite enable us to do that either in a poetically approximated way or by means of a very specific and analytical articulation.” 

The collection of the museum includes around 200 plaster casts of various organs and body parts. Right from the beginning upon discovering a particularly interesting pathology the museum's preparators did not only preserve it, but also made a plaster cast of the preparation. Body parts of living people were also cast in plaster, if they had some unusual anomaly. An example of it is the collection of the pathologies of hands and feet — syndactyly (fingers or toes wholly or partly united) and polydactyly (a condition where a person has more than five fingers or toes on one, or on each, hand or foot). After receiving information about strange anomalies in patients from doctors the specialists of the Anatomy Museum visited the patients to make plaster casts of the particular pathology. They were interested in the congenital character of the anomalies.

The workshop fee is 25 EUR (including all necessary materials and light refreshments).
Tickets can be purchased here.
Event time: March 21th, from 17:30 to 19:30
Age: from 14 years old.
Limited number of participants (up to 20).

Laimdota Malle has graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University Master’s programme in the United Kingdom and the Master’s programme of the Latvian Academy of Art. Presently Laimdota Malle is the residing artist in the RSU Anatomy Museum.