Roadkill artist wants his works to take stigma out of death

Aidan Corcoran uses the carcasses of bats, geese, cats, dogs, deer, a seal, insects and even a peacock that he and friends ate.

An artist who uses roadkill and carcasses of animals as props in his work says he hopes the public will look at death in a more lighthearted way.

Aidan Corcoran, 43, aka The Roadkill Re-animator, opened an exhibition in Co Kildare this week in a disused medical surgery.

The art on display features the carcasses of bats, geese, cats, dogs, deer, a seal, insects and even a peacock that Corcoran said he ate with friends before using as a prop.

A ship made from mummified baby bats and moth-eaten goose wings (Niall Carson/PA)

A sculture entitled Faery Circus made from a pigeon skull embedded with bluebottles cast in polyester resin (Niall Carson/PA)

Artist Aidan Corcoran also known as The Roadkill Re-Animator in his workshop, holding a ferret carcass Niall Carson/PA)

“In essence the work is an opportunity to look at death and the macabre in a different way and a bit more light-hearted than usual,” Corcoran said.

“To see the beauty all around us, beauty is about our attitude towards things as well as the work itself.”

Corcoran said he first got the idea when he found a deer that had died after becoming stuck in a fence. He skinned it and made a mask from the skeleton.

“I thought this animal was dying for a stupid reason, a man-made reason, and that we should put it to good use.

A mummified baby bat in the crows nest of a ship made from moth eaten goose wings by artist Aidan Corcoran, also known as "The Roadkill Re-Animator", which forms part of his work at the Dark Nouveau exhibition at the Old Medical center in Kildare town, Co Kildare.

The exhibition is called Dark Nouveau and is being held at the Old Medical Centre in Kildare (Niall Carson/PA)

“We used as much of it as we possibly could, and this got me started on this idea of using dead animals.

“A lot of things are being killed every day and no one thinks about it and I thought I’d use that as a way of providing an opportunity to question the impact of our lives and relationship with death.”

Corcoran is keen to point out that the animals are never killed for his art, but die first of natural causes.

“The peacock was raised by a friend who used to breed turkeys and had a few peacocks. When the peacock died, it was eaten by myself and a few friends of mine, and I put the carcass to good use.

“I don’t ever kill anything for the work; its all salvaged.

A sculpture entitled "Mr P Koch and his Dolly bird" by artist Aidan Corcoran, also known as "The Roadkill Re-Animator", which forms part of his work at the Dark Nouveau exhibition at the Old Medical center in Kildare town, Co Kildare.

A sculpture entitled Milkless Maggie (Niall Carson/PA)

“The cats are both roadkill that I picked up side of the road. Sometimes I find them, or often people will find something and pass it on to me.

One exhibition piece is a little ship with a crew of baby bats, found by a friend of mine who restores old buildings.

“Another roofer friend of mine gave me some mummified pigeons he’d found,” he said.

Some of the work is staged, with the animal skeletons put together in vignettes and arrangements to show the “mechanics of biology” or send a wider message.

A work in progress from Aidan Corcoran (Niall Carson/PA)

A sculpture entitled "Cat number 2" made from a cat carcass insects and victorian dolls eyes by artist Aidan Corcoran, also known as "The Roadkill Re-Animator", which forms part of his work at the Dark Nouveau exhibition at the Old Medical center in Kildare town, Co Kildare.

“I work with mostly bones because of the elegance of them. I like the fact that there’s a sort of visceral nature, you can’t escape the fact that the thing is not alive.

“Taxidermy is costume, a different type of fantasy, and I’m fascinated by the mechanics of life in that way,” he said.

The exhibition Dark Nouveaux runs at the Old Medical Centre as part of the Dare To Visit Kildare Halloween festival, and Corcoran says the public reaction so far has been very welcoming.

“I’ve had a very good reaction. People really like it, it’s not threatening, macabre in some ways, but I think the comedy element means it’s not unsettling.

“The work is not intended to be scary, but dark and fascinating.”

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani authorities are investigating the shooting death of a man who had been acquitted of killing accused Indian spy Sarabjit Singh in a Lahore prison in 2013, a police official said Sunday.

Pakistan has previously accused India’s intelligence agency of being involved in killings inside Pakistan, saying it had credible evidence linking two Indian agents to the deaths of two Pakistanis last year.

The man who died in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on Sunday was Amir Tamba. He was a suspect in the death of Sarabjit Singh, an Indian national who was convicted of spying in Pakistan and handed a death sentence in 1991.

But Singh died in 2013 after inmates attacked him in a Lahore prison. His fate inflamed tensions between the two South Asian nuclear-armed rivals.

Tamba and a second man went on trial for Singh’s death but were acquitted in 2018 due to lack of evidence.

The deputy inspector general of police in Lahore, Ali Nasir Rizvi, said gunmen entered Tamba’s house and shot him. They fled the scene on a motorbike. Officials from Pakistan’s army and intelligence agency reached the site and removed Tamba’s body, taking it to the city's Combined Military Hospital.

Rizvi said a case had been lodged against unidentified assailants but gave no further information about the case, including a possible motive for the attack.

There was slow coverage of Tamba’s death in Pakistan's media. However, Indian outlets were quick to report on the shooting. There was no immediate comment from the Indian authorities.

Singh was arrested in 1990 for his role in a series of bombings in Lahore and Faisalabad that killed 14 people. His family said he was innocent.

Last year, both the United States and Canada accused Indian agents of links to assassination plots on their soil. India dismissed the allegation of its involvement in the killing in Canada as “absurd."

In the case involving the U.S., India’s foreign ministry said it had set up a high-level committee to investigate the accusations, adding that the alleged link to an Indian official was “a matter of concern” and “against government policy.”

This story has been updated to correct that Tamba's killing occurred Sunday, not Saturday.

FILE - Indian Sikhs shout slogans against Pakistan as they display photographs of Sarabjit Singh, center, a convicted Indian spy who was on Pakistan's death row, died from a head injury after two inmates attacked him with a brick in a Lahore jail, during a protest in Kolkata, India, Thursday, May 2, 2013. A Pakistani police official says an investigation has begun after a man suspected in a fatal attack on an imprisoned Indian national more than a decade ago was shot dead at his home in the eastern city of Lahore. (AP Photo/Bikas Das, File)