H.A.I.R EXHIBITION
- EVENT ROUND UP -
- EVENT ROUND UP -
Apologies for the tardiness of this post; with so much going on last month, I was very pleased to make it to at least one event for Black History Month.
H.A.I.R was a special exhibition on for one day only at The Rich Mix in Shoreditch, as part of Black History Month in Tower Hamlets. I was one of the many guest panellists invited to take part in one of the debates.
Despite being a panellist myself, I was more excited by the opportunity to hear from Author Ben Arogundade, who was also one of the guest speakers of the day. Ben's book Black Beauty played an important part in my research for my uni dissertation and consequently an important part in my decision to go natural. Other panelist included Sally-Ann Ashton and Sandra Gitten, both of whom I've been working with on the Origins of The Afro Comb project >here< as well as Belinda Raji of BeUnique Hair Care.
The exhibition included artefacts, images and information about ancient and traditional hair practices; as well as contemporary art works by both British and American artist. One of my favourites had to be the Night Scarf series by Angela Dennis.
It was great to see new performances from theatre group Silhouettes In The Dark, prior to the film screening of Bold Black and Beautiful - a black hair documentary made in Canada in the 90's.
There was also a barbershop where some of the young men present got their hair cut, and a hub area which reminded me of my bedroom when I was younger - covered in pictures of singers from back in the day, and inside the hub you could sit down and watch a short movie about hair.
It was a nice day, and I'm pretty sure that Organisers Teanne Andrews and Sasha Henriques are looking forward to preparing something on a similar scale for next year. It was fantastic to see the number of people who had volunteered to help put on the exhibition and I was really pleased to have the opportunity to be involved.
You can see the video of how I achieved my Braid-Out style for the day >here< or check out some of the other snaps from the event >here< in the Facebook album.
