Disclaimer: I am not a historian, I am an artist who sometimes tries to make sense of the world. These are a few of my thoughts about tattooing, particularly the ones that relate to the creative Portal that I’m currently journeying through.

My experiences tattooing and being tattooed have shown me that tattoos can be a powerful tool for addressing and healing trauma. Tattooing provides a consensual space for people to reclaim agency over their own bodies. It is a transformative and ritualistic craft that is based in human connection and self expression.

Tattooing is a way that people reclaim ownership of their bodies, choosing adornments based on their own histories and expressing themselves creatively. I celebrate the tradition of tattooing as an indigenous art form, and believe that connection is at the root of this craft. We connect with ourselves through the expression of our individuality, we connect with our communities through this practice, and we connect with our history through symbols that hold power and meaning for us.

The African diaspora practices a range of traditional healing arts that involve the earth and the body. In Trinidad and other parts of the colonized world, many indigenous forms of spirituality and creative self expression (such as scarification and tattooing) were suppressed, severing the indigenous relationship the black diaspora had to these traditions.

In my upcoming work, Portal, I use tattooing as a creative tool to address generational trauma in the context of Trinidad’s colonial history. It is essential to me that this ancestral art form is accessible and is offered for free to Black Trinidadians, many of whom have not been able to prioritize creative self expression and self healing in the context of capitalism, compounded by a global pandemic. My intention is to create a space for open discussion around Black identity, and to explore our relationship to this island and to the earth.