UDHR Article 15: Everyone has a right to their own nationality.
Created as an entry to the Student ADDY Awards and in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, this piece was rendered in Photoshop to get the effect of many tattoos on one person.
Nationality plays such a huge, but subtle, roll in societal perceptions that only when we call attention to it does it's audience realize it's there. I wanted to play on Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and make a bold statement at the same time. We see a variety of nationalities and races in popular culture without consciously identifying it, and when we do, drawing attention to it seems taboo.
Tattoos, on the other hand, are a widely recognized taboo in modern culture. Becoming slowly less so over the years, someone with multiple tattoos is still expected to cover up and hide their ink, especially if they work in the Financial sector. This piece specifically has some more boldly rendered and others faded to give the illusion of adding to a piece over a period of time.
In joining the two taboos, I conveyed the idea that nationality/race combined with a socially accepted taboo showed the absurdity of how discrimination against appearance is a social construct. We are all one people, diverse and varied, and that makes us beautiful.
