Yanni (Niki) Li

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Treated more as a symbol of ancient wisdom or simply an aesthetic, instead of a language, Chinese characters have made an impact on visual cultures of the West. Westerners like to have Chinese tattoos without actually knowing the cultural context they carry, and sometimes even the actual meaning of the words.

Often these attempts of participation and appropriation do not have malicious intent, but their presentation is fraught with misinterpretation and ignorance. To create an open dialogue on how the West is capitalizing on the "exotic charm" of the Chinese language, Yanni Li's thesis presents a conceptual space that displays a series of tattoos that use original fonts and graphics that Li designed. These tattoos play with the illegibility and exoticism of Chinese characters while selecting humorous phrases from popular culture and everyday slang.

The audience is welcome to lounge around and apply the temporary tattoos onto their body. The intention behind this interaction is to show how cultures can be reclaimed and repurposed by other cultural backgrounds and perspectives, sometimes creating a cultural disparity in which feeble attempts at understanding can promote ignorance, rather than transparency, respect, and clarity.