The Millennium Dome Human Body and other strange exhibits inside the Millennium Dome (2000) exhibition captured Britain at its most surreal—giant hearts, dancing brains, and playful oddities that questioned what the new millennium might bring.
When I visited the Millennium Dome in January, I expected optimism and grandeur. Instead, I found dancing brains in fez hats, reclining giant figures you could walk through, grotesque sculptures parodying British life, and a corridor made of cash. It was clever, confusing, and completely bonkers—an ambitious dream muddled by a government that couldn’t decide what story it wanted to tell.
This post revisits the Millennium Dome Human Body and other weird wonders, not to mock them, but to celebrate their ambition, charm, and cultural strangeness. These weren’t museum exhibits in any conventional sense—they were theatrical, provocative, and oddly revealing.
Together, they exposed what Britain hoped to become at the turn of the millennium—and what it already was.
At a Glance: The Millennium Dome Human Body and Other Strange Exhibits
- Surreal and uncanny: Walk through the Millennium Dome Human Body exhibit with a giant beating heart and dancing brains in fez hats.
- Cultural critique: Gerald Scarfe’s grotesque sculptures exposed Britain’s social tensions beneath millennial optimism.
- Moments of reflection: Faith and Rest Zones offered quiet pauses amid the spectacle.
- Playful yet provocative: Work, Learning, and Money Zones blended satire, nostalgia, and social commentary.
- Vision and irony: The Dome’s mix of science, art, and humour revealed Britain’s hopes and anxieties.
The Millennium Dome: A Cabinet of Curiosities
The Dome’s creators imagined a “Great Exhibition for a New Age,” but what they built was closer to a cabinet of curiosities—a sprawling, surreal exploration of identity, work, belief, and the body.
You didn’t walk through a coherent story so much as drift through Britain’s collective subconscious. There was satire, sincerity, and plenty of spectacle—all stitched together with a slightly unhinged optimism that now feels uniquely millennial.
The Millennium Dome Human Body Exhibit Turns Anatomy Upside Down
The Millennium Dome Human Body exhibit invited visitors to walk through a human being, figuratively, at least. From outside, the structure looked like two reclining figures tiled in mirror-like shards, one male and one female, leaning toward each other in a reflective embrace. Inside, the surrealism deepened.
A giant heart throbbed overhead, mechanical brains performed a “comedy-routine”, and flashing lights pulsed through a colossal body form. Escalators carried visitors through layers of skin, muscle, and bone before they emerged from the foot of the female figure. It was part science centre, part art installation, part fever dream. You didn’t learn anatomy—you inhabited it.
The effect was absurd and strangely moving, as though the designers had turned the human condition inside out to see what would happen.
Inside the Millennium Dome Human Body—Science, Spectacle, and Strangeness
Sponsored by Boots and supported by L’Oréal and Roche, the Millennium Dome Human Body combined cutting-edge science with theatrical flair. Visitors encountered robots performing surgery, holographic embryos, and a wall of telephone directories showing how much data was in the human genome. Nearby, a looping film explored how we talk about beauty and the body, while other displays imagined future medical advances—telemedicine, genetic research, and the ethics of enhancement.
It was both educational and uncanny—a walk-through metaphor for how technology was beginning to reshape our sense of self. Beneath its optimism ran something profound: a fascination with what makes us human, and a quiet unease about where progress might lead.
Scarfe’s Savage Portrait of Britain
If the Millennium Dome Human Body Zone celebrated life, the Self-Portrait Zone dissected it. Amid a mosaic of patriotic images lurked the twisted sculptures of Gerald Scarfe—a series of grotesque figures lampooning British society. For example:
- The Thug—a pot-bellied bully with a spiked boot for a head—embodied violence hidden beneath civility.
- The Couch Potato, fused to his armchair, anticipated our binge-watching culture decades before Netflix.
- The Racist, cloaked in a gabardine coat, his back morphed into a gaping mouth, revealed the ugliness of prejudice even within an exhibition meant to inspire unity.
Scarfe’s satire hit like a slap in the face. Amid the Dome’s upbeat messaging, his figures reminded visitors that progress and cruelty often coexist—that Britain’s millennium dream wasn’t without its darker side.
Stillness Among the Spectacle
The Faith Zone felt almost otherworldly in its restraint. No flashing screens or booming sound effects—just nine pillars depicting birth, marriage, death—through the world’s major religions.
In a building obsessed with the future, this stillness felt radical. It reminded visitors that amid all the technology and spectacle, meaning still came from silence and shared ritual.
Absurd Exhibits in the Work and Learning Zones
The Work Zone resembled a surreal office party hosted by Blue Peter. You could play a giant table football match with others to symbolise teamwork, and read tongue-in-cheek motivational posters—styled like adverts for Carry On films—parodying workplace clichés.
Nearby, a wall of colourful Post-it notes gave visitors a voice—scribbled frustrations pinned up like public confessions.
The Learning Zone took things further, blending nostalgia and futurism. One moment, you were in a drab school corridor scented with boiled cabbage and disinfectant; the next, an “Infinite Orchard” that scanned your face and launched you into a digital adventure.
Both zones seemed to ask: were we preparing for the future—or endlessly rehearsing it?
Money Madness
In the Money Zone, visitors received gold “spend cards” and raced to blow a virtual £1 million in under a minute. Behind glass, stacks of real £50 notes glowed under soft lighting—part game, part warning.
It was playful yet unnerving: an exhibition celebrating abundance while hinting at excess.
Playful yet unsettling, it was a satire on consumerism disguised as entertainment.
From Rowboats to Rocketships
The Journey Zone traced human transport from muscle to machine. It began with a humble rowing boat, rose to a hot-air balloon—represented by a model of the Montgolfier brothers’ historic flight—and culminated in a full-sized Pendolino train, a sleek design not yet running on Britain’s rails.
The Dome loved this symbolism: motion as progress, engineering as destiny. Yet standing among the models felt less like a celebration of technology and more like a wistful reminder of how much we wanted to believe in advancement at the dawn of a new century.
A Thousand-Year Soundtrack as Surreal Art
Perhaps the strangest experience of all, the Rest Zone resembled an early-2000s chillout bar—rainbow curves, soft lighting, and an ambient soundscape. At its centre played Longplayer, a piece of music designed to last 1,000 years without repeating.
It was the Dome’s most poetic gesture: art stretched across a millennium, quietly looping as the world outside raced on.
Otherworldly Oddities Near the Millennium Dome Human Body
Next to the Human Body Zone, animatronic “Timekeepers” explained the concept of time through a mash-up of Stonehenge, Da Vinci’s flying machine, and cartoonish extraterrestrials. It was Doctor Who meets Blue Peter, charmingly bonkers and utterly British in its refusal to take itself too seriously.
What the Millennium Dome Experience Revealed About Us
The Millennium Dome Experience was never just an exhibition. It was a mirror held up to British society—distorted, funny, and painfully honest.
Its oddities revealed as much about Britain’s insecurities as its hopes: our obsession with reinvention, our uneasy relationship with technology, and our need to laugh at ourselves even in moments of national pride.
It wasn’t perfect—but that’s precisely why it matters.
In trying to imagine the future, the Dome captured something profound: the surreal, self-deprecating heart of British culture at the dawn of a new century.
Looking Back at the Millennium Dome Human Body and Other Weird Exhibits
Looking back, the Millennium Dome Human Body and its other surreal exhibits feel like fragments of a national dream—bold, funny, fractured, and strangely beautiful.
It’s easy to remember the headlines about its “failure”; harder to remember how it felt to walk through it.
If you visited in 2000, you’ll recall that surreal mix of optimism and awkwardness. If not, perhaps these images offer a glimpse into a time when Britain tried to imagine its future, for one brief, surreal year—and accidentally built a mirror that reflected itself instead.
PHOTO DETAILS
Where: Millennium Dome, Greenwich, London
When: 14 January 2000
Camera: Pentax MZ-50 (35mm SLR)
Film: Konica Centuria 200
Scanner: Minolta DiMAGE Scan Elite 5400 using VueScan software
Want More?
👉 Discover how it all began in my companion post: Inside the Millennium Dome (2000).