1st-7th June Project Update

Notes

The research direction is pretty clear after 1st June tutorial.

After the tutorial, earlier this week, I drafted the questionnaires to the tattooists to identify their place in the tattoo industry. Ideally, I should send the questionnaire to my stakeholders, but I decide to hold them at the moment. Since I felt that I need more time to do the secondary research before I can start a conversation with my stakeholders.

1st June Tutorial Summarize

The Change I Want to See:

I want to see tattoos gain greater acceptance in China. Tattooist as a job can be legally accepted. And tattoo parlours can be legally recognized without worrying to be shutting down anytime by the government.

Question:

How can mainstream Chinese tattooists updating tattoo perspectives from traditional to modern and learn from the ‘tattoo renaissances’ of the western?

Context:

• Mainstream China

• Mainstream Western

Stakeholder/Target Audience:

• Traditional Tattooists

• Modern Tattooists

• Mainstream Tattoo Collectors

• Government [?]

Measurement:

• Learning

Three measures:

1. What can they learn?

2. How can they learn?

3. If they want to learn.

Secondary Research:

1. Research about tattoo in European and American history.

2. Research about tattoo in Chinese history.

Primary Research:

1. Questionnaire to traditional/ modern tattooists.

2. Interview with tattooists/ tattoo collectors

Key Knowledge Acquired This Week:

• Researching has broken my preconception of a consistent western tattoo heritage. The tattoo history in western also appears to be discontinuous according to Written on the Body, edited by Jane Caplan. What I am trying to do here is exactly as the book described:

“They forge a chain of fixed historical and cultural markers in order to anchor and legitimize the practice, with the reasonable hope of rescuing tattooing from its dishonourable and penal reputation in the modern West by associating it with the tribal cultures in which it has been socially integral, highly valued or aesthetically vital.” (Caplan, 2000)

New Questions:

• Should I separate tattooing as a subcultural pheromone and tattooist?

• Except tattooing, what tattooists could do in turns of the changing society?