2011 Senior Project
In our culture, hair is a contested site for Black women. From salon competitions to an individual woman fighting her natural curls, battles are drawn between different approaches to styling. Black women wearing their hair in a natural state is clearly an unpopular choice today. Most women decide either to straighten their hair with intense chemicals, or to conceal it under expensive sewn-in weaves. Being new to wearing natural hair, I wanted to create a series of photographs that showed natural, chemical free hair in a positive light. This body of work focuses on Black and Latina hair in various stages of styling. The images are intended to invite the viewer to be brought into a dialogue about how hair functions aesthetically and culturally.
