The Hair Tales - Project by Michaela Angela Davis

The Hair Tales is a collection of Hair Stories from Black Women collected by Michaela Angela Davis with the idea to look at Black Women's identity through the lens of hair and to affirm it.

2 series are visible online: The Parlor Series and the Kitchen Table Talks

Here is how she present it on the website consacred to the project - MAD FREE Website (click):
The Hair Tales is created to affirm Black Women, inform non-Black people about Black Women and inspire the world through Black women’s beautiful curly, kinky and coily journey.

After nearly 5 years of analyzing the senseless relentless Black death on CNN and other public

I-D's Hair Week: 60's articles about Hair !

I-D present her Hair Week like “an exploration of how our hairstyles start conversations about identity, culture and the times we live in”. 

Yes! 

They do the job of this blog, speaking about gender, races, identity, culture through songs, films, music, video, art, hair stories… from around the world (mainly western)

You can consult all the articles here on their Website but here already a few links among the sixty articles

Willow Smith - "Whip My Hair

Art: Icelandic artist and Björk collaborator Shoplifter has a hair fetish

Movie: 10 iconic hair moments from movie history

Music: 5 empowering hair anthems for defying the haters

Gender: Rose Mcgowan on why going bald is the ultimate feminist battle cry

Science: What is Hair? 

I-D: 13 New York Creatives tell their unique Hair Stories

(…) Over the years, I've experimented with so many looks (including wigs) and it's felt like a social experiment on how people experience me based on my hair. It's truly incredible how freely people provide their feedback and how diversely I've been perceived.

Depending on where you are in the world and the social climate, the importance and value of hair shifts. Some people assume I have cancer, others think I'm a rebel. The most difficult aspect of the condition is not being in control. I didn't ask to be part of this conversation but I'm so thankful for the lessons it has a provided me. I've found the more I love and respect myself as I am, the more capable I am of pouring out love on everyone around me. I'm reminded daily of how fragile our condition is and it simply makes me smile. All we have is now.

(…)

Anna Grace, 27, Female, Cape Cod (Massachusetts)

Read all of them here !

Hair Stories collected at the Jamaica Biennial 2017 (Part 1)

Thanks to all of you who participated for this first part... the second part could be seen here

Jamaica Biennial 2017 : Installation of the Hair Project

Exhibition until May 28 at the National Gallery (Kingston). The Biennial have also 2 others venues: Devon House (Kingston) and National Gallery West (Montego Bay) with 90 artists and more than 160 works…

Hair Story: removing my lox ...

I wore lox for thirteen years. I felt insecure when I removed. People I knew stopped relating to me in their usual ways.

X., 60, Female, Jamaica

#Identity

#Dreadlocks #HairAsProtection

Hair Story by Emily: Not just bald, but BOLD… and beautiful

I always had long - what people would call - “good hair”. A little curly (sometimes very curly), Indian-ish, but enough coarseness to represent my black. People obsessed over it and I just always saw it as hair. Then I grew ill and all of it fell out. ALL OF IT. I am now bald. But it has created a greater strength in me than I could ever imagine. Not just bald, but BOLD… and beautiful.

Emily, 32, Female, Jamaica

#Lost #Bald #BaldBoldBeautiful

Me, My Hair, and I by Elizabeth Benedict

Me, My Hair, and I

twenty-seven women untangle an obsession

by Elizabeth Benedict

(2015 - Algonquin Books)

These twenty-seven "hair pieces" offer up reflections and revelations about family, race, religion, ritual, culture, motherhood, politics, celebrity, what goes on in African American kitchens and at Hindu Bengali weddings, alongside stories about the influence of Jackie Kennedy, Lena Horne, Farrah Fawcett, and the Grateful Dead. Layered into these essays you'll find surprises, insights, hilarity, and the resonance of common experience. Marita Golden writes about her grief over what so many African American women still endure to obtain "good hair." Patricia Volk itemizes her seventeen hair care products, each with a price tag. Myla Goldberg tells of how ill equipped she was to tend the hair of her adopted biracial daughter. And Suleika Jaouad describes the ravages of chemotherapy and the empowerment of shaving designs onto her head. Source : http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24001099-me-my-hair-and-i

#Culture #Religion #Politics #Society

#Hair Story
#Book

Hair Story: When is it My Hair?

Hair Story about locs found on the Blog: Speaking From An Open View (click on it to read the full article)

"What annoys me, is the comment about my hair type which is considered to be ‘good hair’, which makes me think that people have the perception that only people with bad hair should loc their hair, which is not true. Mi sure know say, when I need to do my hair, no one offers to  give me money to do it, so why do you think I’m going to trim for you? What is funny is that some of these people that we emulate and admire for their ‘good hair’ don’t even take care of it."
(...)

Hair Story from the Blog Speaking From An Open View

Found on the Blog: Speaking From An Open View (click to read the full post)

"Young black men with hair length beyond an inch or two are presumed to be nothing less than delinquents."

"I had landed a job at a very prominent commercial bank. During the interview process members of the interviewing team spared no chance to make a joke or comment about my “unkempt” hair. I believe had it not been for my impressive test scores that opportunity would have been lost. I went on to face some rather nasty ridicule from staff members who thought it was a disgrace to have my hair like it was working at the bank. Nevertheless I was extremely defiant and confident in the fact that my performance at the bank was beyond reproach. I recall the operations manager confessing to me that she had a completely different opinion of my character before I started talking. While I sympathize with her sentiments, I was not amused."

Hair History from Mazola

I’m an African male living in Kingston. I’m wearing dreadlocks and I’m always surprised that people, here in Jamaica, relate them to the rasta religion and culture only, whereas so many different people in for example Africa wear them.

When focusing on Kenya only, in the Giriama culture (tribe from the Kenyan coast), the widow wears locks. 

In the sect of Legio Maria, a dissident sect from the Catholic Church, which initiated among the Luo tribe (the tribe of origin of Obama’s father), the men are wearing locks.

The Akorino people (a religious group) are wearing dreadlocks under a turban, like the Bobo Rasta. 

The Wadawida (Taita) (living at the border of Tanzania), to whom I belong, wore locks for beauty.

The Turkana people (North of Kenya) wear locks in a Mohawk style.

There are the Mau Mau as well, Kenyan freedom fighters,  who  wore dreadlocks fighting the British. 

But not the Masai (who are better known), who wear extensions.

And in Senegal, the Baye Fall (an Islamic sect) wear locks as well. 

Mazola, Male, 52, Kenya-Jamaica

#Dreadlocks #Africa #Culture

Hair Story: MINEEEEEESSSS, FI MI!!!

I love my hair and people are so annoying with their questions like: why your hair so long, why you cut your hair, why your hair so curly, why why why why...but guess what, it’s my hair not yours...MINEEEEEESSSS, FI MI!!!
Anonymous, Jamaica 

#Identity #PersonnalNotPublicMatter 

#Jamaica

Hair Story from V.: a girl must have long hair

At the age of 12, I had long hair. I asked my mom, who was also the family hairdresser, to cut it short. When my dad came home, he was not happy at all: a girl must have long hair ... 

V, 40', female, Belgium

#Gender #Protest

Hair Story from Isabelle

My grandmother always said my hair was badly dressed. For her, our hair was well dressed only when we had a neat straight line in the middle, and tidy hair on either side of the line. I preferred to have a bit of a ‘blurry’ line, which I always found prettier. 

Isabelle, 44, female, Belgium

# Gender

#Generation #DifferentEstheticStandard

Hair Story from CharlB

I have natural hair and often love to change my styles regularly, it's a way for me to be expressive of the moods i am in as well as just have fun. I have a album on my FB page which shows various different hairstyles.  

Often people ask me if it’s a wig or weave because it is long and I am "black" plus i constantly change the color or even the texture (straight to curly to wavy to ...) but it’s always MY hair. I will never be an "unbeweavable" girl! Straight from the root only! 

There have been many occassions where people touch my hair, even without asking me, maybe thinking I will not feel it....the polite ones will ask first!

When I was 30 I cut my hair into a bob which was "short" seeing that before it was  down to my chest. I decided that finally I was a full grown adult and it was MY hair, that I could decide for myself, despite of all the frenz and family asking me to keep it long. Or as they love to say in  JA ..."tall hair" 

In 2013,i had a really difficult year, I went through many different challenges! So i  cut everything off down to 2 inches of hair. At the time my hairdresser did not want to comply so i just took the scissors and cut a big piece out of the front of my head and then said ..."FIX the rest".   It was a new beginning , a fresh start, A REBIRTH!

charlB, 47, Female, Jamaica

#NaturalHair  #Diversity

Hair Story from Julie: The odour of Henna

Since the age of 16 I nearly always dye my hair using henna (a plant making it turn red). Ever since I love and hate its smell. I do not like the smell of fresh henna too much, it being like a kind of stinky manure, but when it starts to fade, my hair having been washed many times, and the rain wets my hair, it emits a fine odour that I adore.

Julie, 37, female, Belgium

#Dye #Natural #Odor

Hair Story from Marie: My hair has always been a reflection of my state of mind

My hair and I, a long story. I think it was through my hair style that I was searching (quite hard) for myself. As a child, I wore my hair very long, afterwards I wore it shorter and shorter. The shorter my hair was, the more I confirmed myself. With or without gel, with or without fringe, red, black, indigo, pink, I have tried all colours. Until the day when, by dyeing my hair so often, I became allergic to pigments. No longer able to dye, I started amusing myself with different cuts. I wore a crest and then, WHAM! I shaved everything! ... That’s when, without adornment, I finally discovered who I was: a young woman being a little lost. I even told myself that my hair took away my vitality. I kept it shaved for a year or so. A crazy year full of twists and turns. And then the calm set it ... I left my hair in peace, it has been growing gently and since then, although I still like to comb my hair differently according to my mood, it stays in harmony with myself. My hair has always been a reflection of my state of mind.

Today, white hairs start appearing. I know I have to live with them. I try to tame them with serenity.

Marie, ?, Female, Europe

#Change #IdentitySearch

Hair Story from Nadine: hair journey

There is a whole story going on between my hair and myself. A story between long and short, between curly and straight. When important events are happening in my life, one of my reactions is to change hairstyle and often to cut my hair. It is as if through this act I have to "mark" a change in my life, as if I need to show it physically, either by affirming the change, or by turning a page, or by trying to become better, in short a change in life comes with a change of hair look. 

In the past I have permed my hair, to make it even more curly, and I have shaved my hair, but not everybody is like Sinéad O'Connor, a bald head is not easy to wear. I have had a straight bob cut using a blow dryer, but I did not know how to maintain it, I have had very long hair, medium long and short ... and often I’m dissatisfied after a few months.

Nadine, 57, female, Belgium / Burkina Faso

#Straight #Curly #Short #Long #Shave

#Change #PersonalLiveMarker 

Hair Story from Anne: a vague feeling of breaking a taboo

Long time memories from when I was 7 or 8 years old, living in the countryside. Summer and tall grass. I always dreamt of having long hair, something which my mother wouldn't consider for me (I guess because short hair are easier to maintain). Secretly I made myself a ponytail out of weeds and clothespins !!! I felt beautiful, at the same time having the vague feeling of breaking a taboo. Maybe the taboo was not as strong as my imagination wanted me to believe, because later I let my hair grow for real! 

Anne, 65, Female, Belgium 

#Gender
#Short #Long #GirlDreamLong #ShortEasy

Hair Story from Hans: I had a real grandmother and a few fake spare ones

My maternal grandmother had a series of wigs she wore to hide her gray hair. In her bathroom she had about 3 or 4 of them, exposed on a row of scary looking white heads made out of styrofoam. When I was a little boy this confused me a lot, as if I had a real grandmother and a few fake spare ones.

Hans, 47, Male, Belgium
#GreyHair #Wig