Disrupting commonly held notions about who gets tattooed and why, The Tattoo Project describes, illustrates, and celebrates the social significances of commemorative tattoos. Written by scholars from various disciplines, as well as by community members and practitioners, this edited collection considers the meanings people make from their experiences of love, loss, trauma, resilience, and change, and why they choose to inscribe those meanings on their bodies. This methods-based text also examines the process of building a community-contributed digital archive of tattoo photos and stories, the result of which inspired the contributions to this book. Writing at the intersections between the public and the private, the authors consider the production and mobilization of knowledge across communities, disciplines, and space. Featuring beautiful tattoo photography, personal narratives from project participants, and original poetry by Priscila Uppal, The Tattoo Project is a novel read that bridges the gap between academic and popular audiences. This timely collection is a valuable resource for courses across the social sciences and humanities and for anyone interested in tattoos and their significance.

Inked forever on the bodies of 253 residents of Lexington, KY is a love letter to the city they call home.

Here are the final results of The Tattoo Project, works by 11 fine art photographers with a variety of styles who shot portraits of 100 heavily tattooed individuals. The brainchild of photographer Vince Hemingson, the event sequestered models and photographers in Vancouver's Photo Workshop for a multiple-day shoot. Thousands of portraits were produced that aimed to explore who each of the subjects was through their ink and the photographic process. This volume features more than 200 images from the event and truly reflects not only who the subjects are, but who the photographers are as well. From differing approaches to lighting, mood, and color to different methods for engaging the subjects, each of the artists clearly has a unique vision. This is an ideal book for photography and tattoo art students, teachers, and enthusiasts.

"In this provocative work full of intriguing female characters from tattoo history, Margot Mifflin makes a persuasive case for the tattooed woman as an emblem of female self-expression." —Susan Faludi Bodies of Subversion is the first history of women’s tattoo art, providing a fascinating excursion to a subculture that dates back into the nineteenth-century and includes many never-before-seen photos of tattooed women from the last century. Author Margot Mifflin notes that women’s interest in tattoos surged in the suffragist 20s and the feminist 70s. She chronicles: * Breast cancer survivors of the 90s who tattoo their mastectomy scars as an alternative to reconstructive surgery or prosthetics. * The parallel rise of tattooing and cosmetic surgery during the 80s when women tattooists became soul doctors to a nation afflicted with body anxieties. * Maud Wagner, the first known woman tattooist, who in 1904 traded a date with her tattooist husband-to-be for an apprenticeship. * Victorian society women who wore tattoos as custom couture, including Winston Churchill’s mother, who wore a serpent on her wrist. * Nineteeth-century sideshow attractions who created fantastic abduction tales in which they claimed to have been forcibly tattooed. “In Bodies of Subversion, Margot Mifflin insightfully chronicles the saga of skin as signage. Through compelling anecdotes and cleverly astute analysis, she shows and tells us new histories about women, tattoos, public pictures, and private parts. It’s an indelible account of an indelible piece of cultural history.” —Barbara Kruger, artist

Tattoo photos and illustrations by Eddy Deutsche

Once a derogatory label derived from the Hawaiian word for half, Hapa is now being embraced as a term of pride by many people of Asian or Pacific Rim mixed-race heritage. Award-winning film producer and artist Kip Fulbeck has created a forum in word and image for Hapas to answer the question they're nearly always asked: "What are you?" Fulbeck's frank, head-on portraits are paired with the sitters' own statements of identity. A work of intimacy, beauty, and powerful self-expression, Part Asian, 100% Hapa is the book Fulbeck says he wishes he had growing up. An introduction to the rest of the world and an affirmation for Hapas themselveswho now number in the millions—it offers a new perspective on a rapidly growing population.