In the months leading up to Christmas, artisans in Indian-controlled Kashmir are generally busy making ornaments that end up on Christmas trees around the world.

They work in home-based workshops using a traditional papier-mâché technique.

Typically, they have to hustle to fill orders, but this year, because of US tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, demand has significantly dropped.

Syed Shahriyar visited some of these artisans in the city of Srinagar and gathered images of their work.

Click on the player to hear the story.

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There are many good reasons to wander into a thrift store, including finding good deals and vintage items that nobody else has.

But one thrift store in Canada got a donation that’s so old — it may be ancient. It was a set of jewelry that came from an anonymous donor, which was made up of two medallions and 11 rings.

“The rings did not look like they were in good shape, they just looked old,” said Sandy Parker, manager of The Thrifty Boutique in Chilliwack, British Columbia.

The items looked so old that an employee did some research to see if they had any kind of historical significance.

“You feel like it could be special. We do have an advantage today with Google Images and all that sort of thing. But it doesn’t do everything we need,” Parker explained.

A few months of digging resulted in no real clues, so the store put the set up for sale for $30. Shortly thereafter, a customer noticed the jewelry set and echoed the staff’s initial thinking. So, the thrift store employees sent an email to the archaeology department at nearby Simon Fraser University (SFU).

“I don’t normally respond to these kinds of emails,” said Sabrina Higgins, an associate professor of global humanities and archaeology at SFU. “We get a lot of emails, where people ask us to give them an evaluation on objects. This one was intriguing to me, though, because it came from a thrift store, which is not something I’ve ever experienced in my career.”

After conducting some initial, visual analyses, Higgins and her colleagues believed the items may very well be ancient. The thrift store then donated them to the university for further research.

“There are some really, really, really good forgers out there who know how to make things look ancient,” said Cara Tremain, an assistant professor in the archaeology department, who is part of the team examining the pieces. “But it didn’t look, to me, like these were deliberately made to look old,” Tremain, an expert at identifying forgeries, said.

Despite being donated together, Higgins thinks some of the items actually came from different time periods.

“My earliest estimate is probably the 4th or 5th century CE, and then you know, up into the medieval period,” Higgins said.

The team is also trying to figure out where the items came from.

“They’re very likely from the region that once encompassed the Roman Empire,” Higgins added, “but whether or not all of them come from somewhere in the Balkans or somewhere in Northern Europe, that’s unclear because a lot of this material culture was really translatable across those regions.”

To nail down those details, Higgins said they need to do more research and testing. They’re even recruiting students to help with that by designing a new course around the items at SFU. Tremain is also leading the course and said students will learn how to tackle the ethical questions surrounding this work, too.

“Why did we decide to accept [these items]?” Tremain posed. “And then how can we retrace the steps of the provenance by really not knowing anything about them?”

In fact, Higgins said, as archeologists and museum professionals, her team has a duty to make sure that artifacts like these are returned to their country of origins.

“If we were able to repatriate those, that would be, I think, the best outcome that this course could have,” she said. “And it would probably lead us to an entirely different course in which we would teach the students about repatriation processes and how we engage in that on the ground, and actively doing it.”

The new course is set to start in September of 2026.

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For generations, wool was a trusty European staple. But with the rise — and continued rise — of cheap synthetic materials, wool is being pushed out.

The knock-on effect has been that wool has gone from being a valuable resource to a waste by-product for cheese and meat-producing sheep farmers.

Reporter Dany Mitzman, from our partners at Deutsche Welle, DW, has the story.

Click on the player to hear the full story.

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Artist Kirstie Macleod has dedicated much of her career to a single piece of work called The Red Dress Project. It centers on a single red gown, which provides an artistic platform for people to tell their stories through embroidery. It’s become a global endeavor, with 380 people from more than 50 countries contributing to the dress.

But back in 2009, Macleod could never have imagined what the project would become. 

“My intention was purely just making sure to create this cross-cultural dialog, and I wanted it to spread the globe,” Macleod told The World. With that idea in mind, she started sending out small panels of burgundy-colored silk to people all over the world.

“With FedEx or DHL. And often hand carried, actually, because some of the countries — the postal services weren’t so reliable, so it would involve human chains of people,” she explained.

Along with each blank panel, Macleod sent a pretty loose brief “asking the individuals to create something of their own identity and the culture that they’re from.

“So, for the most part, I would never know what was coming back,” Macleod said.

Catalina Sanchez, an ecologist from Colombia, is one of the embroiderers who worked on the project.

“I really, really wanted something colorful and joyful and tropical, you know,” she told The World. Wanting to highlight Colombia’s enormous number of bird species, Sanchez embroidered a toucan with its signature orange beak, plus pink flowers and green palm leaves. “For me, that represents my country.”

Designs on the dress really vary depending on the country. An Irish woman added a small, green shamrock, while an anonymous artist from Iran used red, yellow and orange thread to write “Woman Life Freedom.”

A contribution from South Africa shows a scene from the countryside, with a farmer ploughing a field, a guitar and a mother gently tending to her children.

And from northern Canada, an Inuit woman embroidered an Indigenous Medicine Wheel sometimes known as the Sacred Hoop.

“It has been used by generations of various Native American groups for health and healing. It embodies the Four Directions (north, south, east and west), as well as Father Sky, Mother Earth and Spirit Tree — all of which symbolize dimensions of health and the cycles of life,” wrote the artist, Shirley Steenberg, on the project’s website.

Ruriko Wyborn sent in a silk panel from Japan.

“Japan is famous for cherry blossom[s]. So, I put [a] cherry blossom,” she told The World. She also added a kimono and a few kanji characters meaning fortune, congratulations and dream.

Artist Macleod said the commissions’ uniqueness extends past the design to the materials used, since all of the artists used their own threads.

“So, you have everything from hand-dyed cottons to silks to sequins, there’s bits of paper on there, there is a scarab shell, there’s wool, cording, beading. So many different materials,” Macleod said.

“And I love that because it’s real, isn’t it? It’s authentic, it’s what the world is — it is diverse.”

Macleod has lived in a diverse group of places, herself. While she’s based in England now, her father’s job took her family all over the world as she was growing up.

“I was born in Venezuela. We moved as a family to Barbados, Nigeria, Japan, Holland, Canada,” she said, adding that she picked up embroidery at age nine while living in Nigeria.

“I went to a craft class that was held by a really dynamic Indian teacher. And she was the one that taught me how to embroider. And yeah, just ever since then I’ve just absolutely loved it.”

Macleod went on to study art and textile design in school, and got the funding and idea for The Red Dress Project in 2009, a few years after graduation. The Red Dress was finally completed in 2023. It’s a burgundy gown with a full skirt, fitted bodice, V-neck and long sleeves.

It weighs nearly 15 pounds and still functions as a real dress. But only certain people can wear it: the people who made it.

“Just some of the embroiderers, really,” Macleod said. “I get asked by a lot of people for weddings, proms, birthdays, performances. I even got asked by a princess from Madagascar if she could wear it to her coronation. I just say no. So, I’m not interested in any of that. It’s purely for the embroideries so they can have their moment.”

Embroiderer Sanchez, from Colombia, hasn’t been able to see the finished dress in person, let alone wear it. But she said she feels lucky just being part of the project.

“Bringing together so many identities, cultures, backgrounds, beliefs — like, being able to be together through this project, for me, was amazing,” Sanchez said.

The Red Dress is now primarily shown across the world as an exhibit in galleries and museums. The dress has mostly stayed in the UK this year to promote Macleod’s new accompanying book, “The Red Dress: Conversations in Stitch.”

Next year, though, she’s taking it back on the road, with plans to exhibit in Australia, Rwanda and the Netherlands.

“I can’t believe it. Every day I’m like, how did this happen?” Macleod said. “Like my little project, how did it grow into this? It’s amazing. It’s humbling, very humbling.”

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The year 2020 was supposed to be a breakthrough for Dublin-born playwright Lisa Tierney-Keogh. Her play, “This Beautiful Village,” was set to run that summer on the stage of the Abbey Theatre, Ireland’s national theatre, followed by a nationwide tour.

It was an achievement that Irish writers dream about, Tierney-Keogh said. But in March 2020, the Abbey, along with all of Ireland’s theatres, went dark, and remained shut for at least 15 months when the COVID-19 pandemic struck.

“The cancellation of the play was devastating, absolutely devastating,” she said. Two years later, however, the Irish government introduced a basic income scheme to try and get artists back on their feet.

Tierney-Keogh was among the 2,000 who were selected. “I remember the day I got the email. It was like my heart jumped in a happy way for the first time in a couple of years. It felt like somebody finally believed in me again,” Tierney- Keogh recalled.

Visual artist Tom Meskell, was in Philadelphia when he too found out that he had been chosen for the program. Meskell, who’s based in Mayo in the west of Ireland, was working on an art project called, “Lights in the Darkness,” raising awareness about mental health and suicide within the Irish diaspora.

Early one morning, while staying with fellow Irish artist Tommy Casby, he discovered they had both been selected. “It was around 6:00 a.m. and we both danced around the kitchen.”

For Meskell, a father of two, the news was transformative. “As a self-employed worker, you’re constantly thinking six months ahead about how to keep everything going,” he explained. “It was amazing, I’ve never had [work] security before.”

The scheme was broadly welcomed in Ireland — a public consultation produced a 97% positive response. But not all members of the public are onboard. Callers into Irish radio station Newstalk questioned why artists deserved the income and not other professions.

“If you can’t make money as an artist, then perhaps change [your] career,” one listener complained on the station’s lunchtime show.

Tierney-Keogh said comments like this come from a place of ignorance. “Do you like books? Do you like music? Do you watch [television]? Do you go to the cinema? Do you go to the theater? Some artists had to create all of that.”

A steady income over three years allowed Tierney-Keogh the freedom to concentrate on her writing full time. It also helped pay for some major medical bills as she underwent treatment for endometriosis.

And Cork-born visual artist Elinor O’Donovan said the scheme meant she could give up her part-time job as a receptionist and live in central Dublin developing her work in film installation and digital collage.

The pilot scheme comes to an end next February, but in October, the Irish government announced it would renew the program on a permanent basis from late 2026.

An independent evaluation of the pilot program found that recipients spent more time on creative work, suffered less financial stress and experienced an overall improvement in well-being. The report also found that for every €1 ($1.32) of public money invested in the pilot, Irish society made €1.39 ($1.83) in return.

Basic income programs rarely survive past the pilot stage. Andrew White, senior lecturer in the Department of Culture, Media & Creative Industries at King’s College London, said the Irish program is somewhat of an anomaly. In 2017, Finland experimented with a two-year program giving 2,000 unemployed Finns a monthly flat payment of €560 ($634). Analysis of that scheme showed happiness levels among participants increased, but the majority of them did not secure employment.

The issue often comes down to cost, White said. “When the government asked Finns, ‘Well, if we rolled the scheme out to the whole population, would you be prepared to pay for the increases in taxes that that would require?’ there was a marked reluctance on the part of Finns to support that.” The Finnish plan was ultimately abandoned.

The basic income for the arts program in Ireland enjoys support across the political spectrum. Andrew White said it may be indicative of the Irish government’s overall support for the arts.

Visual artist Elinor O’Donovan is not so sure. She pointed out that state funding for the arts has not kept pace with inflation. “Funding for the arts in Budget 26 hasn’t increased from last year, which means that if you take into account inflation, we’ve essentially had a cut to the arts.”

O’Donovan, who’s a member of Praxis: The Artists’ Union of Ireland, is calling for the scheme to be extended to all 8,000 applicants who were originally considered eligible for the pilot program.

Writer Lisa Tierney-Keogh worries that the government may backtrack on plans to make the scheme permanent. The program is so important for Irish artists, she said, it’s not just about the money, it’s a validation of the work we do.

“It says, ‘We see what you’re doing, we recognize it, and keep doing it. For artists, that’s massive.”

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Victor Bert rummaged through an old wooden tacklebox filled with brushes, paints and emulsions. His assignment was simple. He needed to paint three words onto a wall: “Men,” “Women” and “Shoes.”

They’d be on display at the hip Parisian clothing store “Asphalte.” The project would likely take all day. As an artisanal letter painter, Bert was tasked with handpainting each letter in gold leaf. But that didn’t seem to bother him.

“This is my passion,” Bert said. “I could spend my life doing this.”

France is known for its quaint and classy handpainted signage on storefronts and hotels. The art form dates back to the early 19th century and was almost wiped out by cheaper high-tech alternatives that emerged in the 1980s. But today it’s enjoying a renaissance and artisans are busier than ever.

The technique requires a lot of dedication and patience. Instead of painting in cut-out letters, like in traditional stenciling, Bert explained that he makes hundreds of pinholes following the contours of each paper letter.

After tapping and rubbing the paper against the wall with a special talcum powder dispenser that passes the powder through the tiny holes, the outline of the words appear as little dots that can then be painted over by hand. Like calligraphy, it’s one-stroke work.

Bert, 32, has been practicing this craft for 11 years, and there are a dozen or so other artisans like himself in Paris.

When machines started taking over in the ‘80s, the appeal was that it was cheaper and faster to print stickers, decals and plastic printouts that could be stuck directly onto windows or walls.

“A lot of letter painters hung up their brushes,” Bert said. “‘If we don’t embrace [the new machines],’ they thought, ‘we’re dead.’”

But those products turned out to not be very durable. Stickers became unstuck. Vinyl decals cracked, and the ones exposed to the sun aged badly.

Just when people started souring on decals, the COVID-19 pandemic struck. And when Parisians emerged from lockdown seven long weeks later, artisans like Bert became stars of sorts.

“Everyone was just dying to get back outside and do stuff,” he said. “Business activity picked back up, restaurants and hotels wanted to renovate. And they wanted to go back to traditional things, after all that uncertainty.”

“What Bert does, it’s part of the history of stores in Paris,” said Jonathan Gauthier, the store manager who hired him. “It was important for us to embrace this. Plus, we wanted to give the shop a little caché. Gold leaf lettering enriches our image.”

There’s not much room for error in this process. Bert once had to make tiny inscriptions on $5,000 bottles of wine.

Any mistake, and the artisan has to start from scratch.

“I’ve only messed up once,” Bert said. “I ruined a $200 bottle of men’s perfume,” which he then had to pay for. “Sadly for me, I didn’t like the scent.”

But, he’s done other jobs where you simply cannot err. He was tasked with etching the engraving on the tombstone of late French Prime Minister Michel Rocard.

The inscription read: “Happiness to the artisans of peace.”

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Hurricane Melissa devastated Jamaica and Cuba two weeks ago, bringing with it a short but deadly storm to New York City that killed two people in flash floods. With the world seeing stronger and more frequent weather events 28 years after the signing of the Kyoto Protocol — a global agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions — many crucial questions remain unresolved. And yet, the United States under the Trump administration withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement twice, one of the follow-ups to the Kyoto Protocol, adopted in 2015.

“Where the science is so obviously very, very clear and established, it is very odd to hear politicians from whatever country talk about anything to do with climate denial,” said Stephen Daldry, who co-directs the play “Kyoto,” “when it is obviously and has been, without question, established as a factor of a climate emergency around the world.”

The new play recently debuted in New York at the Lincoln Center and looks at that landmark agreement that took place in Japan nearly three decades ago. It’s set in the conference rooms where more than 150 delegates from around the globe attempted to come to a consensus about setting legally binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions — a moment that took 10 years to reach.

The production presents tense arguments and the compromise that was needed to get to a document that everyone could agree to and sign.

Joe Murphy, one of the co-authors of the play, said that “the intention wasn’t to write about climate change. It was actually to try and tell a story about polarization, about those divisions that really run through our societies at the moment that feel so intractable.”

Along with Joe Robertson, Murphy embarked on a three-year journey researching the road to “Kyoto” and fell in love with UN Climate negotiations, ”which doesn’t sound like the most conventional ingredients for a thrilling night at the theater,” Murphy said laughing. “But in the people we spoke to, scores of diplomats and delegates and scientists, we just found this amazing devotion and commitment and dedication to the craft of multilateral negotiations. And a huge amount of emotion and pride in the work that they have done, for many of them, for most of their lives.”

They noticed gallows humor that can only come from whole nights spent at the negotiating table arguing about commas and the placement of verbs. “And we just went: How can we bottle this and put it on a stage?”

There are some humorous but important scenes in the play about punctuation: brackets, conditional tense, commas.

“As a writer, a comma is used to create clarity for a reader,” Murphy explained. “But in climate law, a comma can be used to create ambiguity, because its placement between clauses or the absence of a comma between clauses can create enough ambiguity that two separate parties, two separate countries, are able to go back to their own governments and claim victory.”

The staging puts the audience right in the middle of the action.

“The set is designed as a sort of UN table, a bit like the Security Council or the General Assembly,” Murphy said. “It’s this circular table with microphones and headphones, listening to translations. And we wanted to invite the audience to take a seat at the table.”

Some audience members even sit right next to the actors around the table.

Don Pearlman, a little-known lawyer who worked in the Department of Energy under President Ronald Reagan, does everything he can as an oil lobbyist to throw sand in the gears.

“Don is such a useful foil,” said co-director Justin Martin. “What I love is the moments of the show in which he reflects us back to ourselves. Because he does make you think about our own carbon footprint and our own contradictions.” At one point, he explains how much carbon the participants use flying from their countries to the conference.

Stephen Kunken plays Don. “One of the beauties about performing a character is getting inside of that person and not judging them but trying to find the connective tissue to that person,” Kunken said. “Ultimately the point of drama is to humanize it. You know, that’s what makes it different from a documentary. I talked with Don’s son, Brad, at length, who is an incredible resource.”

At the other end of the spectrum is Raul Estrada, the Argentine ambassador who became the chair of the annual UN climate conference. He believes in the science and insists on keeping everyone at the table, even if it means working overnight without translators. The actor who plays Estrada, Jorge Bosch, pays tribute to him at every performance.

“He wears his tie onstage, the actual tie that Estrada wore in Kyoto,” said co-author Joe Murphy. “And that’s his little nod to the real man behind the character.”

Even though the show builds to an agreement that the audience already knows about, it’s still a shock and relief when they come to a consensus. Some have considered the Kyoto Protocol a failure — the US Senate didn’t ratify it and other countries followed suit. But Murphy said that, in retrospect, the ability for the world’s countries to come together for a moment — even if it didn’t last — is a goal worth striving for.

“We hope Kyoto shows how that is still possible,” he explained. “You know, multilateralism isn’t dead. But it’s about the will to agree and the will to move forward and to make the difficult compromises. So, I feel hopeful … and that might be a weird thing to say.”

If this doesn’t feel like a satisfying ending, Murphy and Robertson say it’s only the first play in a trilogy to include the Paris Accords.

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In a workshop in Milan, in northern Italy, Enrico Allorto, a master craftsperson known as a luthier, is bent over a bandsaw, slicing through a plank of wood salvaged from an abandoned migrant boat. At a workbench nearby, Nicolae, an inmate from Opera high security prison, is gluing narrow slats of the recycled timber together. Another former prisoner out on probation stands watching.

Nicolae, 43, who is from Romania is serving a 16-year prison sentence. He declined to go into details of his crime, and only shared his first name for privacy reasons, but is more than happy to talk about the hours he spends each day crafting instruments like violins and violas under the guidance of luthier Allorto. The work is slow and methodical. It requires patience, commitment and passion, Allorto said. Each instrument takes a couple of months to complete.

The brains behind the project they’re working on is Arnoldo Mosca Mondadori, president of La Casa dello Spirito e delle Arti — the House of the Spirit and Arts Foundation.

The organization first introduced workshops to make instruments in four Italian prisons a decade ago. In 2021, after witnessing the growing number of migrant boats arriving on the island of Lampedusa, Mondadori approached the former Italian interior minister with a proposal: to take the wood from those boats and use it in prison workshops. Greta Corbella, a spokesperson with the foundation said the minister agreed, even going so far as to offer to fund some of the transport costs of moving the boats from the island to the prison grounds. 

The impact on some inmates has been profound, Allorto said. One former prisoner, originally from Ukraine, who wanted to remain unnamed also for privacy reasons, recalled how learning the craft offered him hope when he was at his lowest point.

“I was in a desperate situation when Allorto first approached me to join his workshop,” he said. Initially he had refused. At the time, he was confined to a wheelchair because of health problems and doubted he could manage the painstaking work.

But Allorto built him a custom-made seat and, little by little, he began to learn. Today, the two men are friends. The former inmate said he now hopes to turn his new skill into a full-time career — and a way to support his family.

Nicolae said it’s hard not to think about the migrants and what they had been through as he works with the wood salvaged from the shipwrecked boats.

“I know what it means to go to sleep as a child with a hungry stomach,” he said, adding that no one leaves their homeland and their roots to travel to Italy unless they’re desperate.

In February 2024, the project reached a milestone when 14 instruments made by the inmates were played by an orchestra at La Scala, the world-famous opera house in Milan. The ensemble, known as the Orchestra of the Sea, performed works by Bach and Vivaldi before a packed auditorium.

Nicolae, who was granted a temporary release from prison for the evening, sat among the crowd. He said it was the first time he had ever been inside such a grand theater. “I felt like I had won a battle — a battle with myself.”

Migrants who see the instruments played at concerts can become very emotional, Allorto said. “They see their suffering suddenly transformed into a thing of beauty.”

Modou Gueye, a Senegalese-born activist who runs a cultural center in the Corvetto neighborhood of Milan, said the initiative is important, not just for the inmates, but also for migrants. Particularly as attitudes towards asylum seekers in Italy have grown increasingly hostile.

“Before [Italian Prime Minister] Giorgia Meloni came to power three years ago, people wouldn’t openly threaten migrants or tell them to go back to their own countries. But that’s all changed,” Gueye said.

But he said that this initiative shows some people still care about the plight of asylum seekers. Gueye, who brings locals and migrants together through music and educational programs, said he hopes that one day, these instruments will serve merely as mementos of a difficult past — and not reminders of an ongoing tragedy that’s still happening off Italy’s shores.

Meloni’s far-right coalition government has refused to endorse the initiative. Greta Corbella with the House of the Spirit and Arts Foundation said she’s unsure if the government is opposed to the project or simply doesn’t care.

“They have shown no interest in the initiative,” Corbella said. For now the foundation has enough wood from migrant boats to keep going for a couple more years. If the wood runs out. then we will just continue with the concerts, she added.

The next challenge for the foundation is finding musicians and orchestras willing to take the instruments outside of Italy and play them on stages around the world. Master luthier Enrico Allorto acknowledged that the sound of the prison-made violins cannot match the precision of a Stradivarius — rare violins made by Antonio Stradivari, prized for their exceptional sound and craftsmanship. Musicians have to work harder to get the right notes, he explained.

“But musicians also understand there is something inside these instruments that other violins do not have — an emotion, and audiences can feel that emotion, too,” Allorto said.

The instruments contain the troubles of many people but they also contain beauty, he explained, and that’s something everyone can appreciate.

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What comes to mind when you think of a sea monster? Serpents? Loch Ness? The shark in Jaws, perhaps?

What about the creatures in the deep sea, more than a thousand feet down, where the sunlight doesn’t reach? Are they certified monsters? Or just creatures we don’t yet understand?

A new exhibit at Harvard University’s Museum of Natural History wrestles with the question of what is real versus imagined beneath the sea. It’s called “Sea Monsters: Wonders of Nature and Imagination,” and it’s the brainchild of Harvard marine scientist Peter Girguis.

This series of images captures some highlights from the exhibit.

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Yoon Na-ri sits at an outdoor café near her apartment in Seoul. Even though the weather is a little brisk, she removes her olive green jacket and places it on an empty chair beside her, revealing tattoos on both arms.

“I have 17 tattoos and I’ve been to six different tattoo artists,” says the 39-year-old who works for an e-commerce firm.

Yoon explained it’s easy to book appointments with artists who showcase their designs on social media. But locating their studios could seem like a scavenger hunt.

“You can’t find their shops on maps, and there are no signs out front,” she said. “So, the artists send directions and sometimes give you the pin code for the electronic lock on their door or tell you to ring the doorbell first before they let you in.”

In South Korea, getting a tattoo was never illegal, but tattoo artists could at any time face arrest, fines or imprisonment. That’s because of a three-decades-old rule that required anyone providing a tattoo to possess a medical license.

Last month, lawmakers voted to abolish that effective ban and legalize the tattoo art profession. Now tattoo artists are trying to understand how the new law will change their industry.

Inside one Seoul tattoo studio, an artist draws a raven onto the shin of a client.

The shop’s owner, who goes by Kuba, says the new law will take off some of the pressure that artists have long felt.

“When I started in the business 13 years ago, police were clamping down,” the artist, who has black flowers and a bird’s foot tattooed across his neck and face, explained. “We used to have to monitor the door with a CCTV camera, and we only worked with customers whom we already knew.”

But Kuba says it’s unclear what requirements will need to be met ahead of when the new regulations come into effect in 2027.

“It looks like we’ll need to obtain a public health certificate, and I agree that’s a good requirement,” he said. “But it sounds like we will also have to pass some kind of written test as well as perform a demonstration, maybe on fake skin?”

The conditions of the new law “are still being worked out,” says veteran tattoo artist Kim Tae-nam, who’s known professionally as Sunrat Tattoo, and is advising the government on health and safety standards for the industry.

Kim said artists had been calling for years to change the law, but were met with pushback from South Korea’s medical establishment that wanted tattooing to remain as part of their domain. The stigma that associates tattoos with gangsters also presented a challenge, he added.

But it was only after tattoo artists found common cause with another industry that lawmakers changed their minds, according to Kim.

“We teamed up with cosmetic beauty clinics that do eyebrow and lip blushing tattoos,” he said. “They faced the same ban that we did.”

Kim explained the beauty industry is “100 times bigger” than the tattoo art profession and thus has more influence. But he speculates that there might be another reason why South Korean politicians felt swayed to legalize these jobs.

“It looks like around half of all the lawmakers in the National Assembly and even the president have eyebrow tattoos,” said Kim.

With passage of the new law, Kim says, there’s a chance to promote “tattoo culture” and end any professional or social prejudice toward his industry. He’s already planning a convention that will highlight the work of Korea’s tattoo art and beauty practitioners.

The last major tattoo convention in South Korea was in 2014. Police shut down that event, and Kim was arrested.

Tattoo artist Kuba says he’s waiting for more guidance from professional associations on how to proceed under the new law.

Now that the door to his industry is wide open, he worries these changes won’t all be for the better.  

“Tattooing is an art and it requires certain skills,” Kuba says. “If it’s just a matter of obtaining a certificate, then anyone can open a studio.”

In a worst-case scenario, Kuba foresees the spread of tattoo academies – a parallel educational industry that’s common for many professions in South Korea. He’s also concerned that corporations will flood the market and studios will seem more like “hair salons.”

“Our work is going to become more competitive,” he said. “I was waiting for this day to come, but now I’m not so sure this will be good for tattoo artists.”

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