Dr. Lars Krutak

For nearly 30 years, author and anthropologist Dr. Lars Krutakhas traveled the world to document the cultural persistence and survival of Indigenous peoples’ tattooing practices. Interviewinghundreds of Indigenous tattoo bearers and tattoo artists along the way, his research and publicationshave broken new ground on one of the most ancient yet least understood mediums of human cultural expression –the Indigenous tattoo.

For millennia, astonishingly diverse forms of tattooing have been produced by various Indigenous cultures across the globe. Some employed tattoos for therapeutic or cosmetic purposes, to mark special life achievements, or to assert social identity. Others marked the body with symbols intended to promote fertility, protect themselves from malevolent spirits, or carry them safely into the afterlife.
tattoos exposed individual desires and fears, cultural values, spirituality, and ancestral ties that were written on the body in ink.

Classes 2025:

• Skin & Ink: An Introduction to Indigenous Tattooing
• Euro Book-Launch: Indigenous Tattoo Traditions