Peels (2023)
Orange peels, tattoo ink, t-pins, fabric, my body

My work Peels combines tattoo + organic sculpture as an exploration of identity reclamation + counter archives + embodied ways of knowing. This year I approached my orphanage paperwork for the first time. When I received the paperwork during my one trip to my orphanage, I was only given 6 words of translation from an 8 page document. These tattoos are text samples from this document. I peeled, tattooed, and ate more than 100 oranges in the process. On this form, the peels are flayed and pinned in place like a science specimen. The peels are playing between temporality/perishability and permanence/forever in their changing materiality. The peels question how to unlock and express the unconscious, unspeakable, unforgivable truths our bodies hold.