Just down the street from the Plaça Sant Jaume, in a corridor called the Passatge del Crèdit lives a place known as Meatshop Tattoo.
Meatshop Tattoo is just one of Barcelona’s many places that do tattoos as well as other forms of body modification. Barcelona has a thriving community of tattoo artists, many of whom come from all over the world to perform their practice.
I spoke with Pepo, one of the co-owners of Meatshop, while I was there to see how the tattoo culture in Barcelona came about the way it did. Through our conversation I learned that Barcelona’s tattoo culture as it exists now is still very new.
It was only about two decades ago when the stigma behind having visible tattoos began to fade and places that offered services like tattooing starting becoming commonplace to simply see on the street.
Like many forms of body modification, tattoos have been around for thousands of years. But in Barcelona the tattoo culture as we know it now began in the 1980s to 1990s among underground subcultures such as punk and rock.
It was only in the early 2000s when tattoos began having their perception shift from simply being identifying marks of one’s culture to expanding into a form of multicultural expression.
Today, tattooing is a regular part of the culture. With the number of tourists visiting Barcelona, many studios receive business from both locals and tourists looking to get a tattoo while on vacation.
About the Author
Group 14: Jarrett Wright (left) is a broadcast journalism major.