The fantasy of longer, thicker, more luxurious hair plays on the idea that an exponential increase in hair will automatically result in an exponential increase in beauty. This black Rapunzel’s dreadlocks threaten to engulf and consume everything in their path, they are in control of her and seek to psychologically dominate all those attracted to them…

Sound abstracts from a series of powerful and moving conversations with friends and relatives on the subject of hair and the subjectivities it presents or belies. The conversations weave the intangible stories of self and personhood that sometimes manifest themselves in the adoption of particular hairstyles and modes of dress and how these come to represent how we wish to…

In the search for contemporary black female identity the concern with being physically and sexually attrac­tive is a useful site at which to examine the emergence of femininity and the numerous possibilities it opens up for the re-articulation of new identities through the practices of artifice. In a time where images of race and representation have become a contemporary obsession, hair, seemingly the most superficial part of the human body remains an object of intense elaboration and preoccupation in many societies. Hair is a multivalent, deeply symbolic material that is employable as a metaphor for broader societal issues. The physical and material inclusion of hair in art is a contemporary…

Photograph courtesy of Kyle Mijlof http://kylemijlof.blogspot.com/  Detail of the installation of The Black Threat in the Michealis building as presented for the graduate exhibition. The hair descends through the center of the building from the ground floor through to the fourth floor.