”There’s More To Tattooing Than Just Tattooing” by Adam McDade

Beneath The Skin

This is a recording of Adam's presentation from the recent Inked Up Marked Out Conference on the interdisciplinary study of tattooing.

Adam is a tattooist currently working in Manchester at Flesh Tattoo, and independent researcher. He completed his practice-based PhD in design in 2021 at The University of Sunderland in partnership with Triplesix Studios, where he began his tattoo apprenticeship in May 2017. This was the world's first to utilise tattoo practice as a research methodology and was described by external examiners (including Matt!) as "the most in-depth, detailed and considered first-person account of tattoo practice in the academic literature".

In this talk Adam draws upon six autoethnographic written accounts of encounters he had as a tattooist between 2018 and 2020, themed around his understanding of the tattooists occupational role. In addition to arguing the role of the practitioner being the provision of tattooing as a creative medium, he argues that the non-material facet of the tattooists role is the provision of service, and offer a framework for how that may be understood and the discipline specific nuances that are entailed. Through this, he sought to demonstrate that there is more to tattooing than just 'tattooing', so that future academic inquiry can be framed and conducted in a more empathetic and meaningful way.

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Production by Thomas O'Mahony

Artwork by Joe Painter (jcp_art)

Intro Music by Dan McKenna

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