"When the China situation arose, Ben immediately came to mind," says director of exhibits Kate Quinn.
She says Neiditz had made a faux mummy in 2008 as part of an art installation and later let the museum's education department use it so "kids could have a chance to see and touch a mummy up close. You know, to add that cool factor."
Cool indeed: That mummy, a life-size number with a comic tuft of hair atop his pate, even sports white-and-blue sneakers.
"We knew we were using photographs [in place of the missing artifacts] for the exhibit," Queen said. "But for [the mummies], we wanted to have something a little more real. They are icons . . . arguably the most interesting part of the exhibition."
Neiditz jumped at the chance.
"He was really excited about it," says Quinn.
(The artifacts, and the mummies, have since been cleared for display and will go on view at the museum beginning Friday and continuing through March 15. The show will reopen March 17, with fake mummies again in place. The rest of the Chinese objects will remain on display until March 28; the exhibition, in its opening form, will continue through June 5.)
Neiditz, 28, who has been an exhibits fabricator at the museum since October 2009, is slim, understated, laid-back.
"I had a blast making these mummies," he says of the two papier-mâché dummies he created using photos of the originals. The first, a 3,800-year-old woman from western China, has been dubbed the Beauty of Xiaohe. The other, Baby Bluebonnet, is a 2,800-year-old infant.
A Boston native who has lived in Philly for six years, Neiditz sports a dark knit cap as he guides a visitor through the exhibit.
He says his two passions are art and political activism.
