If You Look Under There You’ll Find It

An experimental short film structured as the form of traditional and imagined tattooing of the Muscogee Nation, Cherokee Nation and Klamath Tribes.

Through research of the traditional tattoo form of the Muscogee Nation, Cherokee Nation and Klamath Tribes and its histories and meanings we explore the ways it has been hidden, remembered and imagined into the future. The landscapes and memories spiral and cut through the screen in correspondence to the specific inked lines of the tattoo. These same lines are being tattooed by Olivia in the following scenes. While traditional tattoos have been hidden by the clothes worn in portraits and the censorship of settler colonialism we imagine the possibilities of these tattoos' existence into the future and the new shapes they may take. Through this film we will explore the hypothesis of the connection between skin adornment and queer bodies and the disappearance and obscuring of the two.

Commissioned by COUSIN Collective
Made possible with support from Cinereach Ltd.

Supported by the Regional Arts and Culture Council and the Sundance Institute

Digital Video, 5:54, 2023

Directed by- Olivia Camfield, Woodrow Hunt

Cinematography and Editing by- Olivia Camfield, Woodrow Hunt

Cast- Celeste Camfield

Production Assistant- Mel Carter

Original Score by- Devin Ronneberg