Once, it was a cultural practice disparaged and banned by missionaries – but in French Polynesia, the tattoo is now proudly back on show.
These social markings were once forced underground and almost lost, but a cultural revival at the end of the 1970s brought them back to the mainstream as a powerful way to assert identity. Jean-Philippe Joaquim’s documentary plumbs the origins and history of the Polynesian tattoo, and looks at how it has modernised the traditional and travelled far beyond the islands.
Screens with Rapanui, The Secret Story of Easter Island.
