Blog article: Memorial tattoos study - Remembering lost loved ones through the body
Blog article written by Dr Chloe Steadman
Who wants to live forever?
The quest to live forever has long driven human behaviour. In Ernest Becker’s book The Denial of Death, he argues the idea of death ‘haunts’ human beings and drives much activity to deny death or forget about it. Whether by trying to stay healthy through knocking back a cocktail of vitamins each morning, or busying oneself scrolling through social media feeds whilst lying in bed at night as a distraction from the inevitable. In his book Immortality, Stephen Cave identified four paths people might take to achieve a sense of immortality. The fourth path to immortality–Legacy–relates to how people have long attempted to create a lasting legacy by extending memories of the self or others beyond the grave.
Material possessions can hold memories of individuals and groups–whether clothing, photo albums, or family heirlooms– and hence can enable those who have died to continue to be remembered by those left behind. More recently, the online realm is providing a space to memorialise the deceased. For example, Facebook allows people to nominate a ‘legacy contact’ who can look after their profile after their death, and users can decide whether they want their account to transform into a ‘memorialised profile’, or for it instead to be permanently deleted. Others, however, are turning back towards their own impermanent bodies to remember the dead through consuming a memorial tattoo.
Consuming memorial tattoos
Tattooing is a historic practice which was once associated with ‘deviant’ groups in the early to mid-20th Century, until the tattoo renaissance of the 1970s and 1980s which has led to tattooing becoming more of a mainstream practice today. For example, the US tattooing market rose by 8.4% annually from 2017 to 2022, whilst a recent YouGov poll reports 26% of the British public have tattoos, rising to a third of those aged 25-54. Amidst this more general rise in tattoo consumption, memorial tattoos are also becoming more prevalent.
There is existing research about memorial tattoos which typically focuses on how they can be considered as visual expressions of grief. These studies have found memorial tattoos help to create a lasting reminder of those lost, to share stories of the dead and experiences of bereavement with others, and elicit ongoing relationships with the deceased. Recent developments in the tattooing industry have even led some consumers to acquire cremation tattoos, where a small amount of the departed’s ashes are combined with the tattoo ink.
However, little was understood about why a person might consider the ultimately impermanent human body a more suitable site through which to create lasting memories of lost loved ones than other marketplace objects such as a family heirloom. My research into memorial tattoos sought to explore this conundrum.
Memorial tattoos study
As part of a broader project exploring tattooing and time, eight of the people I interviewed had consumed a memorial tattoo. Participants were asked about how their tattoos related (or not) to important life events, the differences between memorialising the deceased through a tattoo or another material object, and future tattoo plans. I also kept a personal diary about my own tattooing experiences, including the acquisition of a memorial tattoo.
The research found there were three unique qualities of the tattooed body which can make it seem a more appealing way to remember the dead than through a material possession.
Body as intimate
The first theme reveals how, although study participants usually had material objects reminding them of those they had lost, they typically viewed their tattooed body as a more intimate and close site through which to create symbolic legacies for the deceased. Especially as tattoos are fairly permanent and painful to acquire, meaning tattooing is a more involved form of consumption. This sense of intimacy was heightened when the memorial tattoo was inked into a bodily location easily hidden by clothing, which meant it was an especially private tribute to a loved one. Unlike other memorial objects which can be passed between generational groups, memorial tattoos were often seen as being more intimately ‘mine’ given they cannot belong to anybody else.
Body as entwined
Due to the body being something we cannot leave behind as we live as a body every day, the second theme encapsulates how participants typically saw their memorial tattoos as a permanently entwined part of themselves. Owing to the permanence of tattoos, participants experienced a greater sense of security in using memorial tattoos to remember the dead than other material objects. Unlike possessions holding memories of the deceased which can be lost, stolen or damaged, memorial tattoos cannot be so easily taken away. Whilst memorial objects can be less portable and more easily separated from the bereaved, memorial tattoos stay with the person until their own body eventually perishes.
Body as controllable
The final theme concerns how participants usually considered their tattooed bodies as a more controllable means of memorialising the deceased than marketplace objects. This was driven by the permanence of tattoos, which often led to more extended tattoo planning processes to avoid any future regrets, and to carefully customise the tattoo to match the lost loved one’s identity and interests. Unlike many other marketplace objects, tattoos can be highly customised from the beginning. Such control over tattoo design and bodily placement also enabled participants to create highly positive post-mortem identities for loved ones and some control over when and to whom stories about them were shared.
Summing up
Ultimately, it is hoped this research in some way helps to open up conversations about death and consumption as an often hidden–but as of yet inescapable–feature of all our lives. To read more, this research has been published as part of a special issue on the body in the journal Consumption Markets & Culture in this open access article.
