Writing on the body

We're just about there, butterfly! And this has set me thinking more about writing on the body. First, riffing off Jill Walker, I'€™ve got Shelley Jackson's skin project, the impressive Gaelic goddess, and galleries full of lettered tattoos. So many choices to make, even after you'€™ve decided to check out the tattoo parlour! All these skin marks are (more or less) permanent, but what about those other words we carry around on our bodies? Clothing in particular has become an important site for writing, from designer tags, labels and logos to decorative script and slogan t-shirts: we are moving texts. Here's Baby Politico, with banners for babies - because activism starts early! The Arabic tattoo though, is part of a trend in the appropriation of other scripts, related in a way to the use/misuse of Chinese characters as designer chic. And on that particular theme here's a blog on the misuse of Kanji script.