Lesson 4 — Activity 2: Body Art and Identity



Another form of art that seems to be an increasingly common way of expressing identity is body art. While piercings and tattoos are likely familiar to you and commonplace nowadays, it is likely that decorating the human body has been important in some societies for thousands of years.

 

Courtesy of Getty

 

Choosing the clothes you wear is one very common example of body art, and it allows you to present yourself in a certain way to other people. There are many other ways that people from various cultures and in various times in history have expressed or communicated ideas through their appearance. Some forms of body art are quite permanent, such as tattoos, piercings, and plastic surgery. Others are more easily changed, such as makeup, haircut or colour, clothing, or jewellery.

Body art means various things. As tattoos have become increasingly popular in North America, traditional tattoos that have great cultural significance in the countries they come from are sometimes worn by people with little or no understanding of the original meaning of the design. If so, a different message is being communicated. In some societies or cultures, tattoos, piercings, or scarification (making scratches or scars on the skin) are ways that people mark special occasions, such as moving from childhood to adulthood, becoming a parent, losing a loved one, and so on.

 

Courtesy of Getty


Again, depending on the audience, the messages conveyed by some forms of body art may be received differently. In some cultures, certain tattoos or scarifications might have meaning about people's roles in that society, which the members of that culture would understand. However, a member of another culture might see those tattoos or scars as horrible mutilations or just pretty designs.

According to a Smithsonian Institution article, " Body Art as Visual Language" by Enid Schildkrout, various reactions to body art have had a major influence on how people view other cultures for centuries:

"From the earliest voyages of discovery to contemporary tourism, travellers of all sorts — explorers and missionaries, soldiers and sailors, traders and tourists — have brought back images of the people they meet. These depictions sometimes reveal as much about the people looking at the body art as about the people making and wearing it. Some early images of Europeans and Americans by non-Westerners emphasized elaborate clothing and facial hair. Alternatively, Western images of Africans, Polynesians, and Native Americans focused on the absence of clothes and the presence of tattoos, body paint, and patterns of scars. Representations of body art in engravings, paintings, photographs, and film are powerful visual metaphors that have been used both to record cultural differences and to proclaim one group's supposed superiority over another."

It seems, then, that the messages contained in body art may have more impact on you and the people around you than you might think! The article concludes with this message about the presence of body art in our society:

" Body art is always changing ... it allows people to reinvent themselves—to rebel, to follow fashion, or to play and experiment with new identities. Like performance artists and actors, people in everyday life use body art to cross boundaries of gender, national identity, and cultural stereotypes."


Body art can be an expression of individuality, but it can also be an expression of group identity. Body art is about conformity and rebellion, freedom and authority. Its messages and meanings make sense only in the context of culture. Because it is such a personal art form, it challenges cultural assumptions continually about the ideal, the desirable, and the appropriately presented body.

"Tattoo" by Jhong Dizon, licensed underCC BY 2.0