City
Townsville

What Does Your Tattoo Mean to You?
This was inspired by the folklore tale of how the bat was on neither the side of bird nor beast when there was a battle between the two. The bat in this tattoo even has spines and a forked tongue, to emphasise this story. Although the original story tends to carry the message of being decisive lest you have no friends, to me it captures the feeling of otherness between categories and never really belonging. It makes me think about how flying foxes are chased from every place they try to roost, despite being a crucial pollinator and disperser of seeds.

The tattoo was done by Emma Mckie of Absolution, Christchurch. New Zealand/Aotearoa has two native bat (pekapeka) species: the long-tailed bat (Pekapeka tou-roa, Chalinolobus tuberculatus) and the lesser short-tailed bat (Pekapeka tou-poto, Mystacina tuberculata).