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We Tell Black Tattoo Stories
A living archive and audio home for Black tattooing — where stories, critiques, rituals, and visuals converge.
Artistry
Entrepreneurship
Artistry
We embrace cultivating history, culture, life, and the experience of others in a manner that cannot be achieved through other means.
Culture
Entrepreneurship
Artistry
We are deeply passionate about individual skillsets that collectively come together to form a multi-dimensional presence.
Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship
We nurture innovative and growth mindset in creating, developing, and managing a creative business venture to achieve success.
A Diasporic Collective
Through events, publications, and convenings, BTA connects Black tattoo artists, cultural workers, and communities across the globe.
Providing Support to African diaspora Tattoo Artists, Creatives & Entrepreneurs
- Funding & resources for emerging tattoo artists, creatives and practitioner-scholars.
- Mentorship & peer community.
- Publishing opportunities within the Anthology archive.
The Cultural Stewardship Playbook: A Living Guide for the Diaspora
A groundbreaking visual and oral history project documenting the rich legacy of Black tattoo artists and their cultural impact through intimate storytelling, photography, and archival preservation.
Abstract: Doin' IT FOR THE CULTURE
Imani K Brown, The Tattoo Priestess
BTA and master Black female tattoo artist Imani K. Brown's life work, as a dissertation examines the enduring socioeconomic and psychological impacts of colonial disruption on traditional African tattoo practices among diasporic tattoo artists and collectors.
While extensive anthropological documentation exists, this research addresses a critical gap: the absence of Black anthropologists centering African and diasporic voices in tattoo scholarship, and the systematic exclusion of Black tattoo practitioners from accessing their own cultural knowledge.
Through a decolonial ethnohistorical framework, BTA and Imani's studies rejects the extractive "study and document" approach that has characterized previous research,
instead positioning traditional African tattoo practices as living knowledge systems requiring restoration to their rightful cultural stewards.
This work identifies and names the phenomenon of "inherited cultural amputation" where colonial prohibitions continue generating both market barriers and psychological distress for contemporary diasporic practitioners and creatives.
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