Saints, Sailors and Sinners: Early Tattoo Art in Malta

Dr. Georgina Portelli PhD (Lond) is a specialist in concept formation, language representation and multilingualism. She has worked extensively in Special Education, Culture and the Arts, Information and Archive Science and has a particular interest in memory studies, diaspora studies and creative partnerships between Art, Science and other disciplines. Georgina is a founding member and research co-chair of ISTRA a contemporary art and research foundation.

Synopsis

Sponsored by the Alfred Mizzi Foundation. This public lecture is part of the project Rel-Ink Indelible Narratives. Rel-Ink is a project that looks at early tattoo art practice in Malta using archival research, community sourcing and oral history narrative. The practice of tattooing, though present for many centuries in Europe, was perceived as taboo by most European societies. The negative connotation stems in part from Judeo-Christian teachings as well as tattooing’s association with criminality. Tattooing was, however, also prevalent among sailors and waterfront workers. Eighteenth and early nineteenth century sources also make reference to heavily tattooed Maltese sailors. Historical research conducted at the National Archives of Malta has established that descriptions of tattoos were included in Maltese passport documents of the period under the heading ‘visible distinguishing marks’. The Rel-Ink project looked at the passport documents of Maltese men from eighteen professions related to the maritime industry, in order to gain a better understanding of who was acquiring tattoos and which designs were popular during this period. Some of the most popular designs included horses, religious imagery, flags, flowers, hearts, sweethearts’ names, anchors, ships, sailors, and swallows. The port city of Marseille was a popular destination for maritime workers seeking a better life or seasonal work in the early part of the 20th century. The Rel-Ink Project also researched these migratory links and points of engagement with Marseille, looking at references to tattooing and the Maltese from French archival sources.

Speaker: Dr Georgina Portelli