selfie style photograph with a woman looking down into the camera, with sunglasses and a hat. overlaid on her chin are three lines made of fuzzy flocking.
#hupagirlproblems (detail)
photograph, flocking
2015

Modified selfie, printed and then drawn, sewn, and painted on. The lines represent a sign of beauty in Hupa culture, colloquially called one-hundred-eleven, usually done as chin tattoos or tinted scarification. In the day to day of taking selfies, we proclaim ourselves to be beautiful. Placing another layer of supposed beauty, to a specific culture, onto a symbol of beauty and self ownership from the broader culture serves to relay information. Both about the broader and micro cultures.

These are what one-hundred-elevens would look like now in a pop context, the same step in doing one's make up in the morning.