Body art: connecting past and future.

Everywhere you turn, young people are using the human body as a canvas. What they fail to realize is that they are participating in a form of artistic expression that is nearly as old as human existence.

Addressing a Need

Observing my students' fascinations with tattoo and henna, I decided body art might make an excellent topic for study, guaranteed to keep students' attention. The topic was interdisciplinary and gave me the opportunity to educate students about health and safety issues.

Defining Terms

Body Art: any form of art or expression that uses the human body as a canvas or medium.

Skin Art: any form of decoration to the skin, permanent, or temporary

Body Modification: the altering of the appearance of the human body by adding or taking something away.

Body Sculpting: the altering of the appearance of the human body by changing its size and/or shape.

Making Connections

I showed students a slide presentation highlighting the methods people have used to modify themselves over the years. We looked at such cultural "norms" as scarification from Africa, piercing among the Inuit, as well as in Africa and Indonesia, the use of lip plates and plugs by many cultures, neck stretching from Myanmar, head shape alteration in South America and Egypt, and foot binding in Asia.

We discussed how different cultures have used very similar methods of body decoration, many for very similar reasons, and how different cultures view beauty.

We drew parallels to many things people do today, things that are not normally thought of as body art such as tanning, plastic surgery, bodybuilding, aerobic training, exercise, and even diet, all of which alter or change the color, shape, and form of the human body to make it more "attractive" to the eye.

Narrowing the Focus

Focusing on skin art, we looked at the long history of painting and staining the human skin. We examined the earliest forms of tattoo, body painting, and the art of Mehndi, a form of staining the skin with the dye from the Henna plant. We discussed the many reasons people use these forms of body markings, from religious and superstitious to political, social, and medicinal.

Cultures on many continents, from Africa to Europe to the Americas, have engaged in the art of body painting. I enjoyed drawing the parallel between the ancient Celtic warrior who painted himself blue and went into battle bare-chested, and the American football fan who paints his face red and blue and sits in the stands bare-chested. Mehndi is primarily an Eastern and Asian art form practiced in northern Africa, India, and parts of Asia, where it has great cultural significance.

Health Concerns

We spent time discussing the health risks associated with each of these forms of body art, in particular tattoo and henna, including: the danger of blood-born pathogens such as hepatitis and HIV when tattoo needles are poorly cleaned and reused or tattoo parlors are not kept sterile; and the danger of using highly toxic and caustic colored henna as opposed to natural colored henna.

An Assignment

Students were given the assignment to create a design for a henna marking for themselves or for someone else. I wanted their sketchbooks to show evidence of research, inspirational material, and variations on a theme. Beginning to end, we spent about two weeks discussing and creating the artworks.

NATIONAL STANDARD

Students describe the function and explore the meaning of specific art objects within varied cultures, times, and places.

WEB LINK

www.amnh.org/exhibitions/bodyart/index.html

Keith A. Rosko is an art teacher at Chenango Forks High School in Chenango Forks, New York. [e-mail]