events
I regularly deliver in-person and online lectures for public organisations in London, Paris and New York, including Morbid Anatomy, London Month of the Dead, and the Viktor Wynd Museum. Recent topics have included:
Exploring ways in which the ‘crime scene aesthetic’ has influenced fashion, film, music and photography
An overview of the Paris morgue's dark and deadly history, featuring true crime, anatomical dissection and international tabloid fame
How morgues have acted as a creative muse for artists, both historically and into the present day
Dates for upcoming events will be published below ahead of time. If you would like to book me for a public lecture or event, please get in touch!
Upcoming events (UK):
DEATH AND THE CITY: Crime, corruption and illegal cadaver trading in Gilded Age New York
6pm on October 16th, 2025
The Old Operating Theatre Museum, London
In the summer of 1866, the first modern morgue in the USA opened at Bellevue Hospital in New York. A direct copy of the infamous Paris morgue – including a public exhibition room for the display of the dead – it was designed to process and identify the growing number of unknown dead found in the streets and the river of the city every year.
The founders hoped that this innovative institution would usher in a new era of urban policing, modern death management and medico-legal investigation in a country slowly emerging from the chaos of the American Civil War. But within a decade, the New York morgue was trapped in a terrible cycle of corruption, crime and neglect. Amidst a flourishing underworld of political meddling, dodgy staff and accusations of unspeakable acts, morgue keeper Albert Napoleon White was later discovered to have been running an illegal cadaver trade through the morgue for over twenty-five years, selling tens of thousands of bodies (and body parts) of vulnerable New Yorkers to doctors, embalmers and medical professionals across the USA.
Despite a very public scandal, the case was dropped and Albert died a rich man. However, the reputation of the first American morgue as a den of debauchery was sealed. So when the old coroner system was abolished a few years later and replaced with a Chief Medical Examiner system – and a brand-new building – the morgue and all those who passed through it were quickly forgotten, obscuring not only the terrible scandals of the past, but also all the incredible progress in forensics, policing and photography that had been made at the morgue in the last decades of the nineteenth century.
Stretching from the squalid slums of Five Points and bloody anatomy theatres of Bellevue hospital all the way to the gilded rooms of Tammany Hall, this talk uncovers the dark side of New York during the glittering Gilded Age, the incredible true history of the first morgue in the USA, and the forgotten fate of tens of thousands of New York’s most marginalised citizens.
Previous events:
SHOT DEAD: Crime Scene Photography in Art and Culture
7pm on October 22nd, 2024 at The Century Club, London
Originally introduced in late nineteenth-century Paris, crime scene photography was designed to capture an accurate, objective overview of a serious crime scene. This budding technology was then adopted by police departments around the world, quickly becoming an essential tool for criminal investigation.
But within a few decades, the rise of tabloid journalism and the work of photojournalists such as the American photographer Weegee helped transform what was once a private forensic document - and visual record - into a popular cultural style. This “crime scene aesthetic” can now be found everywhere from museum exhibitions and Hollywood films to fashion campaigns, music videos, contemporary photography and even reality TV.
In this talk, Catriona Byers will delve into key moments in the development of the crime scene aesthetic, tracing the shift from crime-solving tool to commercially valuable artistic staple that stretches from Taxi Driver and Twin Peaks to Taylor Swift and America’s Next Top Model. Why do these photos continue to capture the public imagination? And what does this ultimately say about our enduring relationship to glamour, sex, death, true crime, and violent aesthetic imagery?
Tickets available here (SOLD OUT)
The Paris Morgue: A Dark and Deadly History - 7pm GMT February 5th 2024 for the Last Tuesday Society at the Viktor Wynd Museum, London (get tickets here SOLD OUT)
Drop Dead Gorgeous: Fashion, Photography, and the Crime Scene Aesthetic - 6pm EST on Monday May 1st 2023 for Morbid Anatomy, Online/New York (get tickets here)
The Paris Morgue: Dark Tourism, True Crime and Morbid Medicine - 7pm GMT March 13th 2023 for the Last Tuesday Society at the Viktor Wynd Museum, London (get tickets here SOLD OUT)
The Morgue As A Muse: Art, Aesthetics and the Anonymous Dead - 7pm EST on Monday January 30th 2023 for Morbid Anatomy, Online/New York (get tickets here)
The Paris Morgue: Dark Tourism, True Crime and Morbid Medicine - 1.30pm GMT on Sunday October 23rd, 2022 for London Month of the Dead at Brompton Cemetery Chapel, London (get tickets here)
The Paris Morgue as a Muse: Art and Inspiration Among the Anonymous Dead - 10.30am CEST on Saturday October 15th, 2022 for Morbid Anatomy at the Musee Fragonard d’Alfort, Paris (get tickets here SOLD OUT)