What Is The Best Thing About Your Hair? by Ayesha Casely-Hayford

Episode 12: “What Is The Best Thing About Your Hair?”

About Afro Archives

Afro Archives explores heritage and identity within UK society. It investigates images of black women through promotion of self-expression and confidence to be who we naturally are. This project seeks to promote and celebrate afro hair by having inclusive discussions about hair and hair-related experiences with people of all ages, backgrounds, cultures and creeds.

“A Performer’s World”

“A Performer’s World” showcases with comparison the experience of women with afro-textured hair through the eyes of the acting industry, where what we look like, matters. By asking to a diverse group of actors questions like: “Would You Shave Off All Your Hair for a Film?” and “Your Hair Represents Who You Are”, True or False?” we uniquely examine the responsibility of media, and curators of culture, as well as how we see ourselves and how society sees and portrays us. “A Performer’s World” could not have been made without the time, generosity, and collaboration of the featured artists, and co-creatives. Thank you to all involved.

Big Thanks to our host filming location, The Black Cultural Archives, in Brixton.

Creatives: Africa Fashion Plus (Afro Archives Blog Host), Robbie Spotswood (Photography), Chris Lovell (DOP), Imogen Mackay Dall (on-location Director), Loreen Brown (Photography), Livvy BakerMendoza (Music) Ayesha Casely-Hayford (Editor, Producer).

Main Creative Team Creator & Producer Ayesha Casely-Hayford is an actress, award-winning voice artist and employment lawyer of Ghanian descent, born in London and raised in Kent. With her roots in law, specialising in employment law and discrimination, and as former chair of the board of trustees for The Act For Change Project, a charity campaigning for greater diversity in the arts, she is uniquely positioned to see the social, performative and legal issues facing black women in the UK today.

Photo credit: Helen Murray Photography

Director Imogen Mackay Dall is a Sydney-born writer, director and ‘ginger ninja’ raised in Tokyo, Washington D.C. and London. She wrote and directed the award-winning conservation documentar y Mystery of the Gnaraloo Turtles (2017) and is writing features for Pinewood Studios and Same Name productions. Keen to advance social issues in her work, Imogen is also writing Creative Breakdown Insurance, a book to help artists and freelancers manage their mental health.

Photo credit: Helen Murray Photography

Featuring in this Episode and With Thanks To

Alexandra Conlon

Alice Fofana

Verona Rose

Tania Rodrigues

Ketorah Williams

Simone McIntyre

Kobna Holdbrook-Smith

Ayesha Casely-Hayford

India Ria Amarteifio

ÂŠ 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford

Peter Warnock

Amrou Al-Khadi

Tobias Deacon

Linden Walcott-Burton

Holly McFarlane

Syreeta Kumar

Anwen Ashworth

Judith Quinn

Annabelle Brown

Ann Akin

Anni Domingo

Nicky Goldie

Andrew Macbean

Martina Laird

Jasmeen James

This is a verbatim transcript of our interviews

“What Is The Best Thing About Your Hair?” Part 1 Featuring actors Alice Fofana, and Verona Rose with Alexandra Conlon, Anni Domingo, Amrou Al-Kadhi, Jasmeen James, Linden Walcott-Burton, Nicky Goldie, Peter Warnock, Syreeta Kumar, and Tobias Deacon. VERONA: The best thing about my hair is…You see that’s really bad! I love my hair! ALICE: Oh my God, I can style it, I can do whatever I want to my hair. I can straighten my hair, I can have it afro I could braid it I could do whatever I want to my hair That’s the best thing about my hair. Whatever I want, literally whatever I want. Yeah, exactly the same, the best hair. Isn’t she beautiful. That, that’s what makes you beautiful. Oh God, don’t do this now, don’t do this. What makes her beautiful is that she just loves her hair, I love mine as well and I think the main thing is that it’s versatile, we can do whatever we want. And it makes me, me, from the hair on my head to my armpit hair. © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford

Oh girl! [laughing]. LINDEN: The best thing about my hair is being able to wake up in the morning and just leave, and not worry about it. But also the best thing I like about my hair is when you get fresh hair cut it gives you a completely new wave of confidence It gives you erm, just that kick, you naturally feel much, erm, more powerful and a better person I think And that’s going from that much [indicates short hair] to that much [indicates shorter]. It makes a massive difference, I think. ALEXANDRA: The best thing about my hair is, it’s loyal. I think I trust my hair a lot. Erm. That sounds bizarre, but it’s something I’ve never had to worry about. I mean girls have so many, well people have so many things they worry about in terms of like you know skin and hair and as an actor you’re always thinking about that type of stuff too But my hair has always been pretty dependable. JASMEEN: The best thing about my hair is that I can change it up whenever I want. So I can have it like this, I can have it really really short and tight, I can blow it out even more so it can get bigger I can have braids, I can have twists I can have cane rows I can wear it straight I can put in a weave Like honestly I feel like for such a long time us as black women have felt really embarrassed about our hair And we’ve conformed to a European standard of beauty And wanting to have this straight hair But you know all my friends with straight hair are like, I’m jealous of your hair. Like we can do so much, any style that we want to do we can do. Yeah so that’s what I love about my hair. And what I love about my hair as well is that it’s big. It stands out, I genuinely love my hair

And I never thought I would say that but i’m so happy I’m so happy I decided to go natural I love it. NICKY: The best thing about my hair, is that it is quite unique for a white person. Erm. It makes me memorable, people remember me because I have unique hair. I really do think that it’s the most interesting and memorable thing about my appearance in general And many times when I’m moaning about my hair the fact that it doesn’t grow but just sort of gets wider and wider, and then they say “Well why don’t you straighten it?” And I think no, I wouldn’t look particularly memorable and I’d just look like any other middle aged white woman! AMROU: The best thing about my hair is that it’s thick and Arabic. ANNI: The best thing about my hair is that it’s still quite thick And I know that if I wanted to grow my hair it can grow but I just don’t like the hassle of long hair. I live out in the country I don’t live in London, there’s no black hairdressers around here so it was quite a lot of kerfuffle for me to look after my hair so the best thing about my hair is that when it’s short I can cut it quite close and it looks good and neat without too much trouble. TOBY: The best thing about my hair Erm. probably its colour. I’m quite a fan of the fact that I’m blond and I go blonder in the sun. So yes just in those summer months people sometimes come up to me and go “So you highlight your hair?” And I go “no, that’s just what the sun does”. Erm, so yes I think the fact that it changes seasonally is probably the thing I like the most about it. SYREETA: The best thing about my hair is that it’s different. To me it’s different all the time and it has a life of it’s own © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford

And it makes me remember that I’m different. PETER: Don’t know. Don’t know. Probably more important to me when I was younger and it was down to about here [indicates arm length], and I could hide my face As I found it was much more important not to be seen. So yeah I kind of liked it when I could cover, being able to look out in the world. Or feeling like you were being judged or something like that. That’s without getting too deep.

Part 2 Featuring actors Ketorah Williams, and Simone McIntyre with Andrew Macbean, Ann Akin, Annabelle Brown, Anwen Ashworth, Judith Quin, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Martina Laird, and Tania Rodrigues KETORAH: Ah! The best thing about my hair is that it’s very versatile You can put it in to so many different styles, very easily, very easily as well. You can literally look like a different person every week, which for me is great as I’m an actress And I like playing roles and I like having that persona and in some ways hiding behind my hair. SIMONE: I echo that. Yeah. Being a performer it can be part of your costume If you have a radical change of look and stuff, it’s really cool so I wouldn’t change it for the world. Yeah. I think we’re very lucky to have our hair. Yeah. KOBNA: Er, the best thing about my hair, is that it’s strong? [laughs] I dunno, I’m not too fussed, sometimes I shave it off. I dunno, the best thing about my hair is that it’s mine, it suits me, I suppose. I don’t know. ANDREW: The best thing about my hair, I, well. I would say the best thing about my hair is that at my age, it is still there. TANIA: The best thing about my hair, is probably that it is quite thick. So I went to the hairdressers the other day and they kept saying, “you’ve got lots of hair.” So I’ve always had lots of hair and my mum tells this story that when I was a baby, I think it’s some, an Indian tradition © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford

But for some reason she shaved all my hair off And she swears that that’s why I’ve got really thick hair now. ANN: The fact that it’s made me redefine my definition of beauty and re-learn myself I constantly as a character trait of my own And maybe because I’m a gemini and I have a really curious mind so I like to learn new things And the best thing about my hair is that its taken me on this new education of, I mean you know, this new education of what I define as beautiful. HOLLY: The best thing about my hair is, that I think it makes me look, so I’m a leo, and I think my hair is a bit like a lion So I think the best thing about my hair is that, I dunno, something about the fact that it fits in with general leonine..attributes - is that a word?! I don’t think that is a word, but you know what I mean. JUDITH: Er, I don’t know! Its erm, its colour I love its colour at the moment and that colour is changeable because it comes from a bottle. ANNABELLE: It’s quite a nice colour, I think, maybe. Erm, sometimes, it’s sort of a nice-ish chestnut-ty brown sort of thing and that very slipperiness that I whinge about and is very annoying Because it doesn’t do anything and it needs to be back-combed like crazy to hold a style is in itself, that’s sort of a silky desirable thing in hair I suppose the grass is always greener. I am yes, for a brief moment, it can look really really nice because it’s quite silly and shiny. ANWEN: I suppose the best thing about my hair is its thickness Although I moan about it every time I go to the hairdressers At least I will probably never loose all my hair as an old lady. Erm, there’s certainly lots there to keep it going so I guess that’s the best thing about it. MARTINA: The best thing about my hair is that I, for me I’ve kept it natural, I’ve never really worn, worn it straightened © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford

I don’t have to do much to it because I’m not one of those people who enjoy having their hair combed, having their hair blow-dried, having their hair fussed over I really just like to keep it as simple as possible.

Part 3 Featuring actors Ayesha Casely-Hayford, and India Ria Amarteifio with Alice Fofana AYESHA: I like how it feels. INDIA: [laughs] What? You feel your hair all the time! Yeah, I like how it feels! Really? Don’t you like how your hair feels? It just feels normal. I like how my hair feels, I do, I like playing with it And I like, but, but, this is new for me isn’t it? Yeah. That I’ve had my hair natural, so it’s like a revelation, Yeah, so, for me I like how it feels because I’ve not really felt it for a long long time and I was India’s age when I started relaxing, I was 14 So it’s a new discovery, and I really like that And the best thing about my hair is again, that it’s mine, so it’s who I am. What about you? The best thing about my hair is that I don’t have to wash it every day I can like leave it for ages. And for some reason… Your mum does say to me oh India’s got to wash her hair and it’s like a thing. I actually don’t mind, I think it’s quite therapeutic, I like, I go through, I put my hair into quarters, rinse it and then wash it, erm then shampoo it - like go through like a thing Like a routine that I get into Yeah, it’s great © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford

But I don’t have to wash my hair all the time And I don’t have to apply grease to my hair, I mean my scalp gets dry sometimes, but then that’s normally like the day before I need to wash my hair, if that makes sense so I think [counts on her fingers] tomorrow, so I washed my hair last Sunday, so I’ll wash my hair this week, like tomorrow, so my hair, it’s not at the moment but normally, the day before I’m supposed to wash my hair my scalp gets really dry And says “wash me!” So my hair doesn’t really need, I don’t put any oil or grease or anything in it - it’s quite easy to handle That’s nice, it’s good. Yeah? Yeah! ALICE: A few years back, my cousin God bless her, she’s so beautiful, my cousin Nana was like “Why don’t you just have YOUR hair, why don’t you go back to being natural?” I was like, “God no, why would I do that?”. She goes “because, why wouldn’t you?” I was like well no because And then I had no come-back. I was like “because I’m used to having straight hair and I don’t really see myself, having, my own hair!” My natural hair And then that really hit reality and I was like, oh My God, wow, did I really just say that - when that was the hair I was born with And then I did the big chop and I went natural And I’m not gonna lie to you because a lot of women that do the big chop now are so confident and I really give it to them because I did not feel confident Because I was used to straight hair, I was used to, yeah, just having straight hair, so I did not feel confident at all. And then when I got back into it, my hair started to grow and I started to feel, oh yeah I love my hair, I love it I love it I love it.

And then it was a part of me and I didn’t really notice it for a while until I got back into performing. And then, that’s when everyone was like, a lot of people were like “So how do you feel being a performer and having natural hair?” It didn’t bother me before. You know. It took me a while to get used to it and then I got used to it and then I got back into performing and then someone was like “So how do you feel?” And I never thought about it at all because a lot of black girls now have weave in their hair you know “Do you get picked for roles, do you get any, what do you get?” It doesn’t bother me having my afro out but I feel that what we were talking about before with Verona was when we go for particular roles a lot of casting directors already have a visual of what they want, of what character they want they already look at your profile picture, sorry your headshots, and they know what they want when they see you, You know and a lot of my headshots are with my hair just tied back so you can’t really see my afro although I do have some out, although the majority of them are with my hair tied back. A lot of them are like “Oh how do you feel if we straighten your hair?”. I can’t say no, I can’t say no. You know they can easily straighten it or they can put a wig over my hair but I just always feel that it shouldn’t, obviously I’m going for a character, for a role but I shouldn’t feel that I shouldn’t go for a casting with my afro out, I shouldn’t feel like I can’t be beautiful with my afro out. That’s not, my hair does not represent who I am. I am me. Yeah it’s on my head, but we all come as one and I shouldn’t be identified because I have an afro, I shouldn’t be identified because I have straight hair, I shouldn’t be identified because I wear a weave. I am me. I’m Alice. Do you know what I mean? And my hair comes with me. © 2018 Ayesha Casely-Hayford

That’s it. My hair doesn’t represent me. You know, I’ve got a wicked personality, I’ve got people who love me and it’s not because of my hair is the way it is! It is because of who I am. So yeah.