Ancient as it may be the popularity for tattoo does not seem to wane in the West. Indeed, we can find a great number of tattoo studios, exhibitions or magazines in our cities. The iconography of the brand seems to be the result of an amazing syncretism of which the "wild" imagery is an important part. Maori tattoos, Arabic calligraphy, dragons and wild animals, not from Western culture, are indeed very popular patterns. True mode of expressions of the skin, the ethnic tattoo indicates a certain view of the world, a view of the Other, as the path one chooses to follow in order to search for a "sense of self". Since the cabinets of curiosities of the sixteenth century, the Western world collects the Elsewhere in assigning qualifications that are, sometimes, approximate ones. Paroxysm of otherness, in every aspect, the "savage" is in opposition to a decidedly urban contemporary reality. Indeed, a "poetics of the wild" made of exotic fantasies, seems to find an echo in the modern world and is particularly popular. Looking closer to the theme of ethnic tattoo and linking it with the growing popularity in the West for the tribal arts and dreams of the exotic Other and elsewhere, this thesis attempts to determine the role of this "poetics of the wild" in self-construction. Including testimonies from ethnic tattooed individuals, tattoo artists, it uncovers five major types of motivations that are intertwined and that are all part of a personal narrative.
