UK Encountering Corpses

I first heard about ‘Encountering Corpses’ late 2013 and it totally sounded like my kind of thing so I registered for a ticket + 1 and waited patiently for March to come. I think it was the fact Paul Koudounaris was giving a talk, who I own one of his books called ‘Heavenly Bodies’ and seeing these beautiful photographs of jewel adorned skeletons, made me want to hear all about the images.I got the coach to Manchester the day before and stayed in a hotel. I meet up with Laura, who works in one of my favourite museums, the Horniman and we arrived at the museum early so we could look at the taxidermy displays and various other things. The day started off with an introduction to the speakers and breaking us in gently so to speak, the room was full of exciting looking people from various backgrounds, a lot of academics, but also a large group of lovers of the macabre and death. We were firstly introduced to Lindow man and was told how his body had been found in a swamp in Lindow and was displayed twice at The Manchester Museum, sparking a range of responses from the public.