Impact case study database

The benefits and ongoing legacy achieved by this project are in five distinct but interrelated areas: A) on the host museums and the communities they serve; B) on curatorial practice worldwide; C) on national heritage; D) on the tattoo community, including artists and collectors; and E) on the perception of tattooing in the general public.

These have resulted from the research findings posed in Section 2, namely that i) tattooing is best understood through a primary-sourced, historical approach; ii) tattooing exists in continuity with broader visual culture; iii) tattooing has a longer and more diverse history than previously suggested, iv) these histories provide insights into the lives of demographics who have been historically under-represented by museums; and v) museums’ failures to properly collect these histories can be overcome with creative collecting and engagement.

A: Host Museums

Participating museums had the same profile: they were ranked in the top percentile of the most deprived areas in the country and all (bar one) based in coastal towns. This is significant in terms of recent Parliamentary recognition of the particular patterns of deprivation faced by seaside communities [S1, p.6, pp. 35-6, p. 41]. At all eight institutions, the exhibition generated income, forged new partnerships, encouraged new audiences, undertook prize-winning community engagement, and developed new curatorial practices [S1, S2].

This work was recognised through, amongst others, shortlisting for the 2020 Museums Association ‘Museums Change Lives’ award [S1, p. 3] and by winning the ‘Best Local Authority Initiative’ by the National Campaign for the Arts, 2019 [S1, p. 18]. Full details of the wide-ranging impacts are spelled out in the report by a Heritage and Museums consultant [S1]. Examples include:

• In Falmouth (2017), visitor numbers increased 9.3% to approx. 109,000 people in the first year. Admissions spend-per-head increased by 6%, largely due to the demographics of the visitors (more new adult tickets have been sold rather than child tickets). Visitor research showed that the temporary exhibition programme led to more adult visitors, leading to a significant increase in ‘new’ adult sales, as did the award-winning public engagement delivered around the original show, which continued with national touring partners [S2]. These new outreach strategies also generated over GBP750,000 of advertising and raised the profile of the museum nationally and internationally [S3]. The Director of the NMMC attests to “seminal and profound impact” … “at the level of ethos and organisational change” [S2].

• In Bristol, the exhibition was particularly successful in attracting visits from priority postcodes (10% higher than average), 16–25 year olds (+6%) and BME audiences (+1%) [S4].

• In Portsmouth, outreach work was undertaken with new audiences that had additional complex needs with drugs, alcohol and homelessness; Alzheimer’s and dementia patients; and local communities including veterans and the football club. Reminiscence work with people with Alzheimer’s and dementia used tattoos to unlock memories. Other innovations included linking up with Naval Recruiters to update sessions, thereby developing a policy that has now been integrated into the programme of the Collections Team [S1, p.20].

• In Yarmouth, the exhibition was recognised as a means to attract first-time visitors—“ especially the missing demographic of 16 – 25 year olds,” as the Exhibition Officer of Time and Tide Museum acknowledged. A local youth organisation produced a companion exhibition TatTwo, media students at East Coast College contributed a film celebrating local tattoo artists and Other Dance Art, and a Young Person’s group created a responsive dance commission [S1, p. 28].

• Host museums have collected new material for their permanent collection, including oral history, photography and testimonials [S1, S2].

B: Curatorial Practice

BTAR loaned a painting by William Hodges, ‘Tahiti Revisited’ (1776), as part of Royal Museum Greenwich’s Collection Stories project to extend the reach of national collections and increase and diversify audiences through national-regional partnerships. As one of four participating exhibitions, BTAR “ impacted significantly on RMG, the regional partners and audiences nationally, both in terms of the core aims and beyond. … The benefits of this holistic, national-regional, partnership-based approach are clear, both in term of direct impact …and in the more nuanced benefits such as strengthening community cohesion and developing workforce skills and confidence” [S5, p. 14]

Curators of exhibitions in the UK [S6, b, f, g] and in Japan [S6, a], Germany [S6, c], USA (National-Norwegian museum) [S6, d] and Malta [S6, e] attest to drawing upon historical, practical and methodological insights from Lodder’s work. In particular, curators drew direct inspiration from the use of silicone sculptures to present tattooing in the gallery space. Curators at the Tate Modern in London and the Getty in LA re-attributed a work hanging in their major 2020 Dora Maar Retrospective to tattoo artist George Burchett [S6, g]. At the National Museum of the Royal Navy, Lodder identified an uncatalogued piece of tattoo flash (or design) in their collections, and as a result of BTAR, they have adapted the permanent gallery for the HMS Victory to include tattoo history [S6, f].

C: National Heritage

The private collection of material once owned by seminal female tattoo artist Jessie Knight, which was core to the exhibition, has been acquired for the nation [S1, p. 12], and will be housed at the National Museum of Wales [S7]. The works were acquired in a private treaty sale, reserved for items of particular national importance. On the basis of having been discovered, catalogued, valued and displayed by Lodder for British Tattoo Art Revealed, the collection was deemed by the Arts Council and by HMRC of pre-eminent importance to our national history and of especial art-historical interest [S8].

D: Tattoo Community

Tattoo artists and collectors involved with the show and more widely have benefited from the research [S1, pp 13 – 15]. The exhibition has generated new customers, new intellectual engagements with tattoo history, cataloguing of previously invisible collections, and increased the value of many objects exhibited [S1, pp. 5, 13 – 15]. An American collector, [S9], purchased one of the newly displayed objects from the exhibition, a historic hand-painted banner, for an undisclosed sum which exceeded its insurance value of £20,000 [S10, para 20]. In 2020, two of the core collectors in the exhibition were in court over a dispute about the value of an object one had damaged whilst borrowing it from another. Though suing for £200,000, the judge awarded the claimant only £750 + costs, stating that “ the most reliable, admissible evidence before the court is that of Dr Lodder. I have based my finding as to the claimant’s loss upon Dr Lodder’s report” [S10, paras. 18 & 19, S11].

E: General Public

A formal review of the exhibition by a report from the Arts Council at its opening stated “ The sheer amount of research, involvement of practitioners, community programmes and curation, from the museum and the guest curators, have the potential to really change our understanding of the history of tattoo art in Britain” [S12]. This potential was realised. For example, comment cards from the duration of the run were overwhelmingly positive, and included such statements as “ Our 4th visit, so sad when I came to the end. This is pure art. Inspired me to have 6 tattoos.”; “ I learned so much and shattered preconceived ideas about tattoos.”; “ Fascinating. Never realised it had such a history” [S13, p. 2].

Four of the venues hosted live tattooing during the run. Rozelle House had a tattoo artist in residence throughout the exhibition. Many visitor comments attest that they went to be or would go and get tattooed This has resulted in countless permanent impacts on the bodies of visitors, including on the Mayor of Bristol [S1, p. 25].

In Japan, Lodder’s research was drawn upon by lawyers who successfully fought to keep tattooing legal there. The legal team attended a presentation by Lodder in Tokyo in March 2019, where he presented research from the exhibition as to the relationship between tattooing and Japan’s artistic legacy. The attorney at law attests that “ The lecture... demonstrated and strongly supported our argument that tattoo has significant cultural and artistic value” [S14].

During the summer of 2020, the Chatham opening was postponed due to COVID-19. In response Lodder worked with the curators at the Historic Dockyard and production company Sparkly Light to produce an innovative film for the BBC’s Culture in Quarantine series. This attracted over 17,000 viewers, ensuring that the exhibition had an audience and an impact even whilst closed to physical visitors [S15, S1, p. 31].