In the summer of 2012, having come out of a 2.5 year-long performance as a business woman, Linnéa Sjöberg decided to buy a tattoo machine and started scribbling on her friends’ bodies. In the second of a series of all-in performances lasting multiple years, Sjöberg developed her own style of unskilled tattooing, with many of the fast and spontaneously evolving motifs inspired by personal experiences. Equipped with needle and ink transported in a moving box, lending the work its name (the Swedish title translates to Salon Moving Box), she would travel from gig to gig to leave her mark on others’ skin. Soon, the Swedish tattoo community, consisting mainly of men, felt upset with Sjöberg’s idiosyncratic usurping of "tradition" and of what is commonly considered beautiful. Spreading rumours about an ostensible lack of hygienic precautions, they denounced the performance to the city municipality. At AB6, Salong Flyttkartong will be animated by Sjöberg in collaboration with a local team of tattoo artists, inviting visitors to get their own unskilled tattoo.

#tattoo #movingbox #skills #tradition #performance #all-in

photos: Nysos Vasilopoulos, 6th Athens Biennale 2018 ANTI