"Self - love 2020" explores the potential of self-tattooing as an intimate mean to understand and bridge unsettled psychological conditions. It consists of a series of prototypes allowing you to give yourself a tattoo on places of your body otherwise hard to reach or see.

Tattooing, i.e. the insertion of pigment into the skin’s dermis, represents a millenary practice which finds its roots in the heritage of various cultures across the globe. In modern western society it has historically been associated with social deviance and rebellion. However, contemporary associations with tattoos have shifted away from a subversive act to a socially acceptable form of self-expression. Contemporary research shows that, especially among young adults, tattooing potentially becomes a personal process for achieving mindfulness through body customization and catharsis.

Within this context, self-tattooing represents the most intimate way of permanently marking one’s skin, allowing a complete focus on self-reflection. Differently from getting inked by someone else, giving oneself a tattoo represents a practice which is completely personal, carried out by the individual only and unfiltered by the sensitivity of anybody else. While self-tattooing one has the possibility to listen to their own body and introspect until this becomes a sort of mindful process, an act of self-love.

For some individuals, both the tattoo design and where they place it are crucial factors, since, beyond aesthetics, they associate a certain image to an experience (feeling or memory) which physiologically or psychologically connects to a particular part of their body. The overall place where such a process happens is also important, either this is their own room, a rooftop, a boat in the middle of a river or somewhere in the heart of a forest. Safe or unsafe space, wherever the practice takes place this is inherently part of the whole experience.