Jude Daya
“The quote “so it goes”, is from Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, who is one of my favourite authors and whose work my father introduced me to.
The deathly Hallows symbol on my left forearm I got first, just after I turned 18. The Harry Potter series was a major part of my life growing up and still is.
The Art Nouveau on my right arm is personified Spring, from a piece called ‘The Four Seasons’ by Alphonse Mucha. He’s my mother’s favourite artist. As someone with (fading) self-harm scars I felt like I needed to put something beautiful on my body instead. Essentially I chose it because it’s pretty.”
Martha Soteriades
“I got it because I really like foxes. How they look, the folklore behind them, that they’re supposedly clever tricksters though I don’t think it has a meaning per se…though
life is long and what something means to you will change over time which is why probably all my tattoos will one day be of pictures, rather than words.”
Natasha De Souza
“I have my daughter’s name tattooed on my back. Riccarda is an Italian girl name. The meaning of the name is `Powerful, Brave Ruler’. She was with me when I got the tattoo, running around in the tattoo parlour Ink Sails.”
Emily Corke
Birds of a feather
“All my life my body has been the site of great debate. People have always though felt that they had a say in what my body should look like. For most of my life it was too big. Then it was two skinny. Now it is too weak. The comments forever fed the misconceptions that festered in my mind. It eventually led to my own hatred for my body and then to my eating disorder. On 10 October 2012 I was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. My life was designed by loss. First it was the weight, then my strength, then my personality. I watched my life crumble away as fast as my body did. I became as frail, dead and dull as an old building. I had disconnected from my body. Looking in the mirror, I could only see the festering images of the misconceptions: the image of imperfection. It is shattering. And exhausting. My tattoo was a way of claiming my body for what it was and what I believed it should look like. My birds symbolise my growth from naive confidence to my broken confidence to my aspiration to believe in my own beauty. My tattoo is all about shattering those haunting misconceptions. I realised the aspiration for perfection is impossible. The aspiration for the belief in my own beauty is far more valuable. My birds take me closer to that belief.”
Amanda Mbonda
“I seriously don’t know. I got it done last year in PE. I like it, I like flowers.”
Simphiwe Mangi
Wu Tang Clan
“I got this one because of an American rapper, The Wu Tang Clan. I like those guys, they sing nicely for me.”
24 RAF
“In the year of 2000 I was going to the bush…then something worse happened…I got in trouble…I go to jail…The tattoo says 24 RAF, which means Real Accident Fund. It’s not like 26,27, 28. I love to live, I love people. I don’t want to kill people. Love people. I’m a person. I don’t want, don’t need a friend. I have my children, my wife.”
