大象传媒

See more examples of Hetain's body art >>>

... the photo of you covered in henna design.
"It's my face and torso covered in the sort of design that you usually find on the palms of brides as they're getting married but I've done out all over my body and my arms and my face. It takes about six hours of sitting there in front of the mirror with a few tubes of mehndi just decorating myself. It's quite important to me that it involves a lot of patience and spending time with the material."

... why have you decided to use these materials?
"It's largely about second generation British Asian identity and trying to grasp back at the culture and try to understand it. Sometimes it's hard from just what you're told from first generation relatives. I use materials from the culture and try to understand it by using, I suppose, more of them."

... what message will people get from your photos?
"Through questio ning what I'm doing, it should question these materials that are used in everyday culture. They're just as arbitrary as languages - there's nothing intrinsically natural about why you should use these materials and yet they're used every day in these materials. I suppose if I use them in a different manner to what they're supposed to be used it should hopefully make you question this, or question why I'm using them."

... in some of your art, you've written phrases on your arm...
"They're Gujerati words but written in English fonetics聟.eg 'first you must go to college and get educated', and 'once you are of money, then you must get married'. I suppose they're sort of a mantra which comes from first generation indians which is tried to be instilled in you. So like with all the materials I've tried to tattoo onto myself, I've tattooed this temporarily onto the inside of my arm."

...where did you get the idea from - David Beckham?
"He wrote something in the same place actually. I assume he must have done it for the aesthetic side because it looks beautiful. But I've done it in an attempt to think about how a second generation might think. I mean, I speak Gujerati and it's questioning whether I think G or whether I'm still thinking English when I'm saying it."

From an interview with 大象传媒 Asian network reporter Rahila Bano.