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Your support makes all the difference.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nRead more<\/span><\/svg><\/span><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nH<\/span>arriet Richardson is not an angry person. Except, it seems, when it comes to art. \u201cYou could draw a line through most of my projects and find them founded in anger. Revenge. Fury.\u201d<\/p>\nIt was during her first Edinburgh Fringe that her newest idea blossomed. \u201cI don\u2019t know if you know much about the comedy circuit\u2026\u201d The 30-year-old asks, squinting her eyes at me. Male comedians? I\u2019ve only ever heard wonderful things.<\/p>\n
She nods and lets out a weary breath. \u201cI have genuinely started to believe that God put them on the earth to annoy ideas out of me.\u201d Ideas like her 2023 performance art piece, in which Richardson spent Valentine’s Day conducting 100 online speed dates with 100 people, including total strangers, close friends, and exes. The dates were livestreamed, so anyone could observe the awkward pauses and the flirting. Even then, she was interested in the art of endurance. While each person had a five-minute slot, Harriet sat at her laptop for 16 hours. <\/p>\n
In Edinburgh, she started to think about the \u2018Madonna-Whore\u2019 complex: the distinction made between women who are seen as disposable versus women who are supposed to be revered and respected. What if the two opposites were combined? What if, in fact, they were brought intimately together? Harriet selected her own body to represent the former group. And for the latter… what better symbol than that of the mother?<\/p>\n
The concept for \u2018Temporary\u2019 came from this dichotomy. Richardson would get a tattoo of the names of her 14 ex-lovers\u2019 mothers, all the way from her first teenage boyfriend to her most recent (and most grown-up) break-up. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was very conscious not to use men\u2019s names,\u201d Harriet explains. \u201cThe people that are, arguably, more important to me than the men \u2013 are the women who raised them.\u201d<\/p>\n
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open image in gallery<\/span><\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>Tattoo artist David Walker, who works in Liverpool, helped bring Harriet’s vision to life (Harriet Richardson)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nFinding the names of her ex\u2019s mothers was no simple task. For 12 of them, Richardson could rely on memory, her own diaries, or Facebook accounts \u2013 publicly available information which no one thinks twice about displaying on social media. (Until, perhaps, your ex-lover decides to get it tattooed on their body.)<\/p>\n
One man who\u2019d ghosted her before a date later told her over the phone that he\u2019d done so because of his dad\u2019s birthday. With the work for \u2018Temporary\u2019 already underway, Harriet asked him for a reminder of his dad\u2019s name. And then, just out of interest: What was your mum\u2019s name again? \u201cAs soon as he said it, I went and wrote the name down in, like, 10 places.\u201d <\/p>\n
Richardson didn\u2019t tell any of her exes what she was up to: that, she says, would have felt like asking permission. \u201cIt\u2019s an act of self, not a collaboration.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some required more painstaking research. To track down the names of two mothers of men whom she\u2019d had fleeting encounters with, Richardson hired a private investigator, who assured her he would use only legal, above-the-board methods.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s open access information and free will.\u201d The artist says. \u201cIt\u2019s not invasive. You can\u2019t say it\u2019s unethical. Or at least, it\u2019s no more unethical than having sex with me and then not speaking to me again.\u201d <\/p>\n
Once the names were found, fact-checked, and organised, Richardson went to David Walker, a tattoo artist in Liverpool, along with Emily Lomas, who filmed and photographed the process. A few hours later, the deed was totally, irreversibly done.<\/p>\n
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open image in gallery<\/span><\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>The tattoo is Richardson’s first and, she swears, her last (Emily Lomas)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nBut it would be another six months before Harriet showed the tattoo to the world. She loved the idea of it being just for her. \u201cI was a bit hesitant. But somewhere along the way, I thought no, I\u2019m really proud of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it is for me. That\u2019s the full stop. I\u2019ve believed that since I came up with the idea, and since I got it done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harriet is not sure if any of the mothers have seen the tattoo, but she does know that one of their sons has. After posting \u2018Temporary\u2019 on Instagram on 20 October, one ex-lover reacted to her story with a \u2018clapping\u2019 emoji. When she asked if he had any other comments, he mutely sent a smiley face. \u201cAn emoji.\u201d She loves it. \u201cThe fact that it can\u2019t even be written in, like, pen and ink. It\u2019s so symbolic of that relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s no coincidence that Richardson got this particular tattoo during her newfound and painfully realised celibacy. \u201cEvery single addiction I\u2019ve ever had is a moderation one,\u201d Harriet says from her London flat, a statue of a naked woman\u2019s torso sitting demurely behind her. \u201cYou can\u2019t live without food, so you have to find a way to have a healthy relationship with it. It\u2019s the same with people. You can\u2019t just not see another human ever again.\u201d<\/p>\n
And after years of painful relationships with what she describes as \u2018dismissive-avoidant\u2019 men, Richardson was in the market for a self-policing strategy. The tattoo is long-term, not just in its existence, but in the artist\u2019s dedication to maintaining it.<\/p>\n
Harriet describes her vision to me: any potential new partner will be asked for their mother\u2019s name upfront, and have the tattoo explained. If they go on to spend the night together, she will go to the nearest tattoo parlour the next morning and get the name added.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a hard boundary that I now have to exercise. It means they see the real me very quickly \u2013 they can\u2019t have sex with me unless they know me. That\u2019s a novelty. I\u2019ve had full relationships with men who never got to know any parts of me that were worth knowing.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a good measure, the artist muses, of which people to let into her life. If they have a problem with the tattoo, then how likely is a sustainable relationship? \u201cThis piece will change who I sleep with. That\u2019s the point of it. I have a sex and love addiction problem. I don\u2019t want frivolous encounters that don\u2019t care about me.\u201d<\/p>\n
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open image in gallery<\/span><\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>“There\u2019s some really cool names on there. What a joy to find out Maureen was going to be tattooed on me.” (Emily Lomas)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nPublic reaction to the tattoo has been volatile. Some love it, while in others it seems to inspire passionate revulsion. She has been accused of being anti-feminist, self-hating, and attention-seeking. Those who dislike it are disturbed by the concept of a young woman marking her body permanently based on the men she\u2019s had sex with, and choosing to continue the ritual throughout the rest of her life. <\/p>\n
However, Harriet has noticed that people\u2019s feelings seem to change with time. One comment called the work disgusting, only to return a day later and confess that they actually quite liked it. In response to the claims of anti-feminism, Harriet keeps it short. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m taking control and power back. I don\u2019t really have much else to say apart from: it was my choice. There\u2019s nothing more feminist than a woman making a choice about her own body.\u201d<\/p>\n
Especially illuminating is the discourse about the number. Under every comment which says 14 is far too many or too few people to have slept with by the age of 30, there will be a reply underneath, earnestly explaining that they thought the opposite. Richardson finds it comforting. \u201cIf 20,000 people think I\u2019m a slut and 20,000 people think I\u2019m a virgin, it must mean I\u2019m somewhere in the middle, which is a person.\u201d<\/p>\n
Six months down the line, she loves the list of mothers, Harriet says, and finds the whole thing funnier than she had expected. \u201cI have moments, like when I\u2019m in the shower and imagine us all squished in there together, or on the treadmill and it\u2019s all of us running, each mother complaining about being dragged along for the ride. I like that none of them chose to be connected, or for me to be connected to the rest of them\u2014 but now they are. I think it\u2019s quite nice that we share something in common.\u201d<\/p>\n
The reaction Harriet was most scared of was of her own mother. Her parents were always strict and conservative, \u201cwhich, by the way, explains absolutely everything,\u201d and tattoos were an obvious no-go. Her mum\u2019s reaction was straightforward: \u2018You\u2019re 30, it\u2019s your body, you can do what you want. I don\u2019t want to see it, I don\u2019t want to look at it, please don\u2019t tell me.\u2019<\/p>\n
Though the tattoo is, by design, never truly finished, Harriet finds satisfaction in imagining a metaphorical line under the list as it currently stands. \u201c[The men] all have something in common, and it\u2019s not necessarily something I want to entertain again. I didn\u2019t have to put 19-year-old Harriet through all of that, but I obviously did, in a way, to become who I am today. I regret some of the relationships. But I just know I\u2019ll never regret that tattoo. It\u2019s so cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
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open image in gallery<\/span><\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>The full list of names: Vicky, Dawn, Linda, Diane, Maureen, Susan, Hazel, Fran, Julie, Lucie, Gillian, Heather, Irene, Angela (Harriet Richardson)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nIt\u2019s a wider symbolism which characterises the piece for Harriet. \u201cIt feels like I\u2019m closing a chapter, not just on \u2018straight white man who\u2019s in control of me\u2019, but on \u2018straight\u2019 and \u2018white\u2019 and \u2018man\u2019, individually, as concepts.\u201d It ties into questions she\u2019s been wrestling privately about sexuality, what sex means to her, and who she\u2019s attracted to.<\/p>\n
And what about the anger which fuelled the concept in the first place? Harriet no longer feels it. Her projects, though founded in provocation, are always the motor by which she processes things. \u201cI forgive a lot of the people on the list, I forgive the people from Fringe, and in short, I\u2019m over it. I\u2019m not angry anymore.\u201d She laughs. \u201cI\u2019m sure I\u2019ll find something else to be angry about soon.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story. The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it. Your support makes all the difference. Read more Harriet Richardson is not an angry person. Except, it seems, when it comes to art. \u201cYou could draw a line through most of my projects and find them founded in anger. Revenge. Fury.\u201d It was during her first Edinburgh Fringe that her newest idea blossomed. \u201cI don\u2019t know if you know much about the comedy circuit\u2026\u201d The 30-year-old asks, squinting her eyes at me. Male comedians? I\u2019ve only ever heard wonderful things. She nods and lets out a weary breath. \u201cI have genuinely started to believe that God put them on the earth to annoy ideas out of me.\u201d Ideas like her 2023 performance art piece, in which Richardson spent Valentine’s Day conducting 100 online speed dates with 100 people, including total strangers, close friends, and exes. The dates were livestreamed, so anyone could observe the awkward pauses and the flirting. Even then, she was interested in the art of endurance. While each person had a five-minute slot, Harriet sat at her laptop for 16 hours. In Edinburgh, she started to think about the \u2018Madonna-Whore\u2019 c…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8113,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8112"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}