Doing Hair: Hair and art in Africa curator, Prof. Anitra Nettleton, spoke to City Buzz and shed some light on the exhibition ahead of its 19 August opening.
Nettleton said that working on this exhibition with young interns highlighted how “viscerally personal issues of hair” remained, even in post-apartheid, post-colonial and post-radical feminist spaces.
“It all speaks of how we conceive of ourselves in the world, and how we respond to the images that are put out in the public space about what it beautiful, acceptable, civilised, religiously acceptable, clean and so on,” she said.
Speaking about changes in African hair design and adornment over the centuries, Nettleton said that the most significant shifts happened under colonial rule.
“In some instances, young men acquired elaborate hairstyles as markers of their having freed themselves from the control of older patriarchs,” she said.
“People who converted to Christianity or went to Western-style schools emulated Western hairstyles… The influence of African-American chic and later hip-hop has also been strong.”
The professor pointed out that more and more white people have acquired dreadlocks to look “more African”, and that there was a movement among some black people to bring back old hairstyles and “appropriated forms” of West African braiding, while others stuck to straightened hairstyles made popular by African-American fashions.
“There has been a strong reliance on… African-American modelling of a particular form of beauty since the 1950s. [It] offered a vision of what a ‘modern’ black image could be, one which was largely denied as being possible under the apartheid state,” said Nettleton.
The bustling trade in extensions, wigs, straighteners and other products notwithstanding, Nettleton said that, in some senses, there was no such thing as natural hair.
“Europeans have been playing with their hair over millennia, as have Africans, and there is no reason why they should not all continue to do so – the blonde-haired black soccer stars in the premier league are not doing anything that is… out of line,” she said.
“The implications of the changes and challenges to notions of beauty and propriety are important because they have to do with aspects of personal freedom and development.”
Doing Hair: Hair and art in Africa, sponsored by Black Like Me, will run from 19 August until 1 November at Wam, corner of Bertha Avenue and Jorissen Street, Braamfontein.
Details: 011 717 1378; www.wits.ac.za/wam; info.wam@wits.ac.za
