Brighton Tattoo Museum (BTM) is both a micro museum focused on Tattoo Anthropology and a resource for documentation on tattoo culture, history and artefacts.

We work with curators & anthropologists who understand the problematic legacy of past methods of displaying items of ritual from other cultural practices and always aim to challenge how objects about tattoos are displayed & explored.

By using a mix of academic & folk-art lecturers we aim to decolonise the academic space especially when discussing cultural practices of tattooing and its provenance, while creating a new popular museum for all types of people, challenging the stereotypes of who a museum is for or by.

We host this platform for multicultural voices to discuss and celebrate tattoo anthropology and want to inspire others to think of new ways to create and share history outside traditional domains of knowledge. To do this we invite lecturers from across the world to discuss their cultural tattoo heritage in their own words.

As well as anthropology documentation, BTM has global memorabilia and antique items on display dating back as far as the 1700's revealing evidence of early global tattoo cultures.

These items show that we have a shared global tattoo human history and we aim to show people that tattooing didn't start with Sailors, or solely in Maori or Samoan culture as many believe in the west; every country has Tattoo History.

Tattoo History is not just in far away tribal lands but existed in England once, amongst the Picts, Bretons and Celts so our collection starts with them.

All our display artefacts have been researched or referenced by our curator, world renowned artist; Fade Meraki who has documented tattoo culture in films, podcasts, articles, photographs and more for many years.

Meraki Fade has lectured at The Great North Museum Newcastle, North Arizona Tattoo Convention, The Boston Folk Art Society and her book,

Ancient Tattoo Revival is due for release this year.

BTM’s collection is both appealing to a tattooed audience and those without tattoos who may be interested in cultural studies and history.

We offer open evenings so guests can look around the studio and talk with the curator and international guests.

Please subscribe to our mailing list to get full access to the museum and invitations to our open evenings.