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Find out more about the Skin:Tattoo project

Tattoo: an oral history and photography project for the Body Gallery

Tattoo is an oral history and photography based project developed for the Body Gallery at Brighton Museum.
The project developed through working closely with the Crows Nest Tattoo Studio and one of their customers. It was based on a series of interviews with David the tattoo artist and Bryn who had a large tattoo done by him over several weeks in summer 2000. The project is presented as a series of photographs and a selection of quotes from the interviews on a listening post in the gallery. These complement a display of tattoo equipment donated by David in 1999.

Why the skin:tattoo project?

Tattooing was a theme that we wanted to address in the gallery. Even though it is a popular and long standing activity in Brighton, our selection of objects was limited and needed development. Rather than attempting an overview we decided to work with one studio, focusing on one person's experience of having a large tattoo done over a number of weeks. David Williams from the Crows Nest tattoo studio expressed an interest in the project. We displayed a notice in the studio asking if anyone having a large tattoo done would consider having the experience documented by the Museum, and Bryn Lane came forward. The different stages of Bryn's tattoo were recorded with a commissioned photography project, and through interviews with David, the tattooist and Bryn, the customer. They talk about tattooing in general, how they both got into it, and then focus on their experience of working on the one particular tattoo. The tattoo studio donated a selection of tattooing equipment that will be presented in the gallery alongside the photography project and a listening post with quotes from the interviews.

Oral History in the Body Gallery

Oral histories are being collected as a new way of interpreting the collections at the Museum, based on the themes of the new galleries and the objects being displayed. The oral history projects have contributed to the development of the collections, through the acquisition of directly related objects, archive material (photographs, letters etc.) and unique contextualising information.

The projects involve diverse members of the community, creating insights into society and history and the role that the museum plays in this process. The interviews have generated a wide range of opinions, emotions and memories that help contextualise the objects. Contextual information in this form encourages personal reactions and often dialogue from the visitor, far more than a removed "museum voice".

In the Body Gallery this use of oral history has been developed in two ways. Firstly through a community project based on the gallery theme of transforming the body, and secondly through projects directly related to objects on display.

Collecting Objects and Oral Histories - projects based specifically around objects.

This has been done on a number of levels, one is developing our knowledge of objects in the existing collections - using oral history as a research method. Another is acquiring new objects for the collections through oral history based projects.

Our knowledge of objects already in the collection has been given a real sense of depth and often transformed through oral history research. Interviews have been carried out with artists, others involved in the creation and use of the object, and donors. This will become an ongoing part of developing the collections at the Museum.

All of the oral history based projects in the gallery celebrate the potential of first hand information, letting people speak for themselves about their experiences and opinions.
The focus on individual experiences reflects the overall approach in the gallery, to take a selection of individual objects and use them to introduce different ways that we transform the human body. The gallery looks at how people used each object on display rather than introducing an overview. We hope that the gallery will inspire people to think for themselves about the concept of choosing to change the human body and encourage debate about the issues around it.