My Life as a bird

"My Life as a Bird" is a performance in which I tattoo a line crossing my chest.The tattoo gun triggers a video projection of an exotic trapped, with the following text:

"Do you think I'm beautiful?
Do you like to look at me?
Do you want me to come to your apartment?
Maybe you want me?

Is it permanent?
Does it hurt?
It looks bad.

This is not for you.
But you can watch me.
I just want to make sure that you know.
This line is not for you."

This piece is a radical act of appropriation of my own body and will be repeated as many times as I find necessary.

As an exotic bird and so many other women, I often find myself being read as an ornament of the public space. I meet people finding appropriate to give opinions about my ornamental skills or try to make me follow them to their house/bar/car because they are satisfied with those ornamental skills, then often feeling insecure that I would not be honored by the proposition and grossly/violently slutting me out.

Tattoo being a form of body ornamentation, I thought that stroking my breast could be an effective way to trace on my body that I am the only one to decide about what to do with it and how ornamental I want it to be. As exotic birds, I am wishing that the patterns on my body will inform my surroundings about the limit of their territory. The tattoo is a simple line, it is a free hand graphic statement about how I am now deciding to draw a big black thick line between my boobs. I do it in public and you can watch me. Do you think it is super sexy or a waste of breast is only your problem.