Hand poked

On view now at the AGO, Faith and Fortune: Art Across the Global Spanish Empire brings together more than 200 works of art from Latin America, the Philippines and Spain made between 1492 and 1898. The exhibition’s curatorial approach prompts visitors to critically reflect on the mechanisms of colonization that helped form and sustain the Spanish empire for centuries. As part of the planning, AGO curators consulted with various Filipinx and Latinx community members in Toronto to get their thoughts and insights for the exhibition – one of whom was artist and tattooist Ilona Fiddy. 

With her tattooing business, Fiddy creates hand-poked tattoos informed by the traditional techniques found within her Filipino ancestry. Operating her practice from what she describes as a decolonized perspective, Fiddy seeks to reclaim these ancestral traditions within an industry that has often appropriated them. In addition, she creates visual art using various mediums including works on paper, sculpture and installation. 

We recently spoke to Fiddy about her journey with traditional tattooing and her art practice at large.     

AGOinsider: Can you tell us more about your tattooing practice? When/how did you first become interested in traditional Filipinx hand poke tattooing?

Fiddy: There are several traditional methods for tattooing from different islands, most would be described as tapping rather than poking. I do hand-poking using modern needles as the closest I can approximate to a traditional method and experience. In recreating the spaces and sensations of rituals that were taken from us, there is an intention to reconnect the past and futures of our communities, in all our varieties, reconnect to our bodies in an ancient way to serve the present. I learned about Filipinx tattooing traditions through involvement with the Kapisanan Centre for Arts & Culture as a youth and from my friends Jen and JR, the first people I knew who hiked to Buscalan for hand-tapped tattoo. I had observed how countries like Canada or New Zealand used Indigenous or Māori tattoos or artforms in their marketing materials versus how they view and treat the living people and the land. The Western tattoo industry, frankly, thrives on cultural appropriation while also being super-racist and it’s important to connect that to the real harm it does to living communities working to heal and take up space. And on a simple level I just want to create beautiful things for my community.

Image courtesy of Ilona Fiddy

AGOinsider: You describe your tattooing practice as being done from a decolonized perspective. Can you elaborate on some of the details of this approach? Or what it means to you specifically?

Fiddy: The tattooing is part of a practice in trying to live with a decolonized perspective, both on my part and anyone I’ve tattooed. It’s not something to think of as finite or rigidly defined, though I could give you a more textbook definition of decolonizing. I want to resist its overuse to the point of being trivialized. I have more questions than answers when it comes to this. It means a lot to me to be able to do this work. I could say that part of it is about loving aspects of one’s self and one’s body we’ve been taught not to love, specifically in the embodied and lived experience of a person in a body with ancestors from the Philippines. And all the small revelations that can come from that. This applies to non-pinxy [non-Filipinx] clients when exploring their respective backgrounds as well.

AGOinsider: In addition to tattooing, you also make visual art. How would you describe your work? 

Fiddy: There are so many mediums to explore for artmaking, I hope to learn many more. I’ve done everything from interactive installations to paper and sand sculpture. A lot of my work before or outside of tattooing also referred to the aesthetics or spirituality of culture or diasporic identity as a mixed kid, but not all. I want to learn stone carving. Wood and metal were very challenging, as is skin. They take their own time, and will change with the environment. I guess I like working with the elements in a very tactile way, exercises in impermanence and reverence for the natural world. Time as an element.

Check out Ilona Fiddy’s tattoo and art practice here, and don’t miss Faith and Fortune: Art Across the Global Spanish Empire, on view now at the AGO until October 2022.