TEACHER RESOURCE PA C K E T
• What do you think motivates stylists to participate in Hair Wars? • Imagine a Hair Wars design of your own invention. What does it look like and how would you implement it? • How is The Bird Cage ‘Do’ similar to or different from Meschac Gaba’s “Tresses” on page 34? As a Western traveler observed in 1602, ”braided hair, decorated hair, haircuts for men, shaving, hair extensions, women wearing men’s styles, the use of combs and spikes”59 all were indications of Africa’s expressive hair culture, which probably dates back much further in history. “Hairstyles could communicate status, occupation, and group affiliation. In affluent towns, hairstyling was as changing and competitive as it was in London or Amsterdam.” When thousands of Africans were shipped to the US as slaves, “this proud hair culture survived, often through reinvention. By the nineteenth century, however, black hair-expressivity began to be suppressed.”60
Extension Hair culture from a historical, social, and global perspective is an important theme throughout the Global Africa Project. Artists Sonya Clark, J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere, and Mark Bradford are particularly interested in the subject. Pick one if the images below. How is it different from the Hair Wars photograph? What are similarities between the two?
• How do you think this historical backdrop is important in the context of Hair Wars? • In a contemporary context, hairstyles of different cultural origin have started to morph and often defy ethnic categorization. Can you think of examples for this phenomenon from your own realm of experience?
Mark Bradford Miss China Silk, 2005 C-print,14x11 in. Courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York Photo: Juan Carlos Avendano
Sonya Clark Roots Necklace, 2002 Linen, silk Diam. 12 in. Collection of the artist Photo: Tom McInvaille
J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere Ogun Pari, 2000 Gelatin silver print 24 x 20 in. (61 x 50.8 cm)
57
Transforming Traditions
medium and designing fashions that suit the hairstyle.”58 Started in Detroit in 1991 by night club promoter David Humphries (a.k.a Hump the Grinder), the event began touring nationally in 1994, with stops in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami, New York, and elsewhere.