For a period of five years, photographer Jake Verzosa went up and down the remote Kalinga province to document and photograph the tribe’s super sought-after female traditional tattoo artists — they are covered in tats themselves — who are striving to continue the age-old practice. In the same period of time, Jake also managed to get two tattoos, both on his right forearm, by the Kalinga women.
The tribe “is losing the practice of traditional tattooing because of the changing perspective of beauty and interpretations of the practice by outside scholars,” says Jake on his website. “To the women of Kalinga, the batok or the tattoo goes beyond beauty and prestige. It is symbolic of the traditional values of women’s strength and fortitude.”
His personal project, which is comprised of 40 portraits of Fang-Od and her peers, got the good folks of Silverlens Galleries so interested they decided to publish the portraits in a book called The Last Tattooed Women of the Kalinga Tribe. Like Jake, this is also Silverlens’ first foray into books.
And because Silverlens is Silverlens, they’re launching this project in style: At one of the world’s most acclaimed photography fairs, the Paris Photo Fair, happening from Nov 13-16 at the Grand Palais in Paris, France. Jake will be showing some of his photographs from the series (at Booth D14 on Nov 14 at 4pm). He will be signing copies of his book, too.
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