cont..

…take that guy’s tattoos in the very first photo under ‘EARLIER TATTOO’ for example. He came to me with the intention of getting Tongan kupesi or patterns—which in itself an unconscious appeal to an aspect of his identity that is ‘traditional’ given that kupesi in itself is a term or element of Tongan visual culture that is inherently historical therefore traditional. He looked through some sketches of a design I was putting together for a friend of mine proclaiming Maori origin. He liked the design so much that he asked to be inked with it—at least half and the other half be that of Tongan designs.

The second image is the inner half of his forearm which is mostly Tongan designs. For him, his arm represents elements of his identity—the upper part of his arm is inked with the Tongan Coat of Arm done three or four years earlier by somebody else. You can also see in the first image the letter ‘D’ in Old English lettering inked over the Maori design—which was also done around eight years earlier by me with a home-made tattoo machine and Indian-ink. It is the first letter of his son’s name which he asked to be preserved and that the designs are inked as if it is appearing behind it.

Certainly for him, there are no problems with infusing these culturally different elements together on his arm, yet, from the outside, they seem very much in contradiction with his identity as someone might think of him in terms of mixed-blood. Not that any of these assumptions (will) ever take place but what I am appealing to is a distinctive projection of one’s own sense of identity. A process which takes place or conditioned not by a single outlook on culture that is implicit in every Tongan’s process of self-representation, but which is conditioned by an appeal to popular notion of ‘cool’. I think what I am trying to get to here is the equal-respect we must give to conditions evolving within a socio-cultural and historical space that is not originally influenced by our own culture—especially as migrants or children of migrant-parents. There is an important element in discussing culture that needs to be addressed here—some refer to it as the ‘urban’ or through rubrics such as ‘Diaspora’, ‘transnational’, ‘contemporary’, and so on—but I think I will use the term popular. Such that it is not predominated or predetermined by geographical or spatial outlook as these previous terms suggest, but which appeals more to the idea of influence in terms of or through the means of taste—optically and through sounds. I was thinking of the phrase ‘urban-aesthetics’ or even ‘popular-aesthetics’ but I think I’ll use both for the time being….

Both incorporate elements from an enormous space or source…..

2bcont…