Skin Prints is a collaborative social project that offers a unique experience of consensual touch, creates an archive of bodily resilience, and connects strangers through shared stories and perspectives
Webinar: The Pleasure Experience
In collaboration with Skin Prints (2014-2021) artist and creator, riel Sturchio, Dr. Uchenna Ossai (founder of Youseelogic) discuss the intersectional experience of skin, touch, resilience and community as it relates to chronic illness, sexual health, and systemic oppression.
This project is supported in part by the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin Economic Development Department.
Held on: Wednesday August 25, 2021, 6-7:30pm CST.
![[two hands wearing black gloves cradle 4” x 5” translucent skin print paper which shows imprints and markings left from hair follicles and skin]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/606a10cba46bfa6ea77fb65b/1628535259879-KSOJYQD8DS98O3U9LDHI/skin+print+paper.png)
[two hands wearing black gloves cradle 4” x 5” translucent skin print paper which shows imprints and markings left from hair follicles and skin]
Open calls through social media offer collaborators the opportunity to receive free materials, including 4" x 5" & larger sheets of sticky transparent film that creates an imprint of one's skin. Prints are then sent back to me, scanned, and digitized for enlargement.
Skin Print # 75 (Leah Dyjak, Attleboro, MA), 57" x 71.25", 2 oz ripstop, 2021
Skin Print # 21 (Mukhtara Yusuf, Bristol, CT), 57" x 71.25", 2 oz ripstop, 2020
Skin Print # 44 (Ollie Buerger, Austin, TX), 57" x 71.25", 2 oz ripstop, 2020
[Above is a section of 3 black and white skin prints featuring unique patterns that consist of tiny white bumps, black streaks, and scars all produced by skin.]
We are each uniquely moved and impacted by our positionalities while sharing the experience of what holds each of us; our skin. I started Skin Prints in 2014 as an attempt to offer a collaborative therapeutic release to my own and collaborator’s bodily trauma through the creation of print archives. As I re-engaged with this project in 2020, its meanings shifted due to the context of critical issues that uniquely yet collectively affected us all; pandemic isolation, the need for universal healthcare, police brutality, and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Between 2020-2022 many people’s bodies went without touch. Currently—especially with the political climate—LGBTQ+ people and BIPOC individuals are disproportionately endangered and affected by physical brutality, sometimes at the cost of their lives. This project provides a small window of respite and space to hope and find belonging.
TedxUTAustin “Hear & Now” show at the San Antonio Parking Garage in Austin, TX, 2021
With support & collaboration with:
This project is supported in part by the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin Economic Development Department
The Visual Arts Center helped host the public webinar for “The Pleasure Experience”
In collaboration with Dr. Uchenna “UC” Ossai of Youseelogic for the talk “The Pleasure Experience”
Skin Prints is in a forthcoming collaboration with Planet Texas, Stories of Ancient Resilience Program