Princess Internet: Encountering Corpses: Jewelled Skeletons & Getting Pissed at Church

Paul Koudounaris (from Heavenly Bodies)

I was introduced to the personality and charm of Paul Koudounaris before his beautiful photography, when my bestie Jessica informed me she was talking to a dude from LA online who's obsessed with cats and has a house full of taxidermy and I would love him. I initially dismissed it as Jess being her weird little self as always. But when browsing tumblr and Paul's Heavenly Bodies work came up on my dashboard with 12,000+ notes attached, I realised it was something more special than just being weird. Soon after his book release I was reading articles on Vice, seeing more of these images being shared around online and met his lovely friends from LA Mike Odd and Sugarpie (who came over for Rebellion Festival and seemed to enjoy the tacky horror of Blackpool more than anyone who's ever been to Blackpool.) All the while I was becoming more intrigued about this mysterious photographer.
So I was obviously very excited when Jess started to put things in motion to get Paul's photography exhibited in Manchester. She put Helen Malarky in touch with him, (Institute of Humanities and Social Science Research project manager at MMU) and plans were forming to hold the Encountering Corpses exhibition at Sacred Trinity Church. I got my tickets for the opening night in January, it sold out quickly and soon everyone I knew wanted to see this work.

The exhibition consists of 12 large scale photos of charnal houses and jeweled skeletons which Paul had taken around Europe, part of his 2 published works Heavenly Bodies and The Empire of Death. The was also a small sectioned off room showing the work of MMU's Sue Fox. Sue gained access to autopsies, mortuaries and crematoriums to create Post Mortem, first published 17 years ago, creating graphic images of limbs and corpses with a sort of soft harsh-ness. The church was also scattered with pieces by community artists in response to the exhibition and soundtracked by the murder ballads of Lee Mellor. We also had some magnificent skull cake from the gorgeous Annabel de Vetten of Conjurers Kitchen (who got very excited about the Frida Kahlo skirt I was wearing and stuck stickers on my boobs.)

Sacred Trinity Church

Skull cakes by The Conjurer's Kitchen

Cake cushion with chocolate skull

Me and Paul Koudounaris

The following night we went to a goth club night at the church which was... interesting. The idea of a club night which was in a church near my flat and bring your own beer (obvs churches don't having alcohol licenses so they just trust you to drink responsibly) was very intriguing. What with me not being a massive goth I didn't know much of what was being played, but they did lay down some Huey Lewis and the News! And there were UV lights, weird dressed up child skeletons, and we were getting pissed in church.