Today we’d like to introduce you to Paul Koudounaris.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Paul. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I have a PhD in Art History (UCLA), and that’s usually a dead end into academia. But I’ve always had an interest in the macabre, and in my case, I was able to combine my academic background with a moderate skill for photography and parlay them into a series of books for the mass market that addresses the connection between the living and dead. That work (there have been three books total) was a long journey both spiritually and geographically, but in brief I wound up traveling the world to look at contemporary cultures which still preserve human remains as means bonding the living with their ancestors, as well as historically the way the very same process was once prominent in Western culture. In some ways, these books were novel, particularly in presenting both death and serious scholarship in a kind of coffee table art book form. This was important to me, because while this type of material is classified by the bulk of society as morbid, I looked at it from the perspective of the connections that were preserved and saw instead beauty, and felt that these various mummies, skulls, and what have you deserved the most sympathetic portrayal possible.
Anyway, one does not live by death alone… so I also publish on considerably more. In particular, I study animal history. Not evolution, but the accomplishments of animals themselves. As humans, we tell history from a specifically homo-centric point of view. We tell of the great feats and daring deeds of humans, hardly anymore aware of the achievements of all the other species that were part of creating history as well. Not only humans have flown in space, for instance. Dogs have, which is pretty well known through the Soviet space dog program, but so have chimps, mice, and even a single very intrepid cat. And animals have not only fought in the battles of humans but have in many cases been responsible for turning the tide. Anyway, you probably get the idea, and I’ve made a determined effort to redress some of the anonymity that animals of great distinction have fallen into. My next book, in fact, is a feline history book, using my own cat as the character of the narrator–and she’ll also illustrate it in period costumes since it turns out she’s kind of a supermodel.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Has it been a smooth road in any of these endeavors? Well no. Ancient burial caves and hidden skeletons need to be discovered. As for the animal stories, those are buried too, although in archives rather than crypts. And have you ever tried to find feline-sized Samurai armor, or to get a cat to wear a fake mustache? But what good is the journey if there are no challenges along the road?
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
It was Halloween, I was perhaps in junior high school. This was back at a time when children actually went out en masse to trick-or-treat–before the current predicament, we’re in now, where good parenting means keeping your child locked up like Rapunzel in the tower. Anyway, I was walking with some friends up the street on which my grandmother lives, and it was filled with these other groups of children, one group came running down the street with terrified looks on their faces, and we asked them what was wrong. They stopped and told us, “don’t go to THAT house!” and pointed directly to my grandmother’s door. They started stammering that a REAL WITCH lived there–she was terrifying, all in black with a black shawl on her head, and crags on her face, and walking hunched over and muttering strange words no one could understand. So I explained, “No, it’s OK. That’s my grandmother. We’re Greek. That’s just how we are.”
Contact Info:
- Website: empiredelamort.com
- Instagram: hexenkult
Image Credit:
Paul Koudounaris
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