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A Hairy Manifesto In The Making
Written in March 2023
‘Hairy’ is the word which best describes my current creative practice. I embrace ways of thinking and making which are tangly and tactile, using ‘hairiness’ as a lens through which to question the politics and possibilities of bodies, ecologies, materials and spaces. I follow fragmentary trains of thought, making unexpected connections and gathering loose ends. I find joy in forgotten and discarded materials, intuitively transforming them with care and curiosity. Creating work through conversation and collaboration, I aspire to develop empathy for marginalised human and non-human lived experiences. I am synthesising these material and social enquiries into a practice of ‘relational making’ and see hairiness as a space of fuzzy edges where such interconnections flourish.
I am considering how hair can be a powerful tool to express identity, and be a space of contested bodily autonomy. It can capture the imagination and shape perceptions in public space, whilst being a site for vulnerability and mutual tenderness in the private realm. In domestic settings and beyond, hair can have a chaotic life of its own, falling off heads and onto clothing, cushions, furniture, bed sheets and carpets. I see these soft surfaces as stages where cultural systems meet bodies. I make domestically scaled and situated art objects which carry stories and provocations with greater emotional agency and intimacy than orthogonal immovable architecture.
Hairy buildings and structures which can be trimmed, sewn, tied or woven together find their origins in indigenous techniques, and offer possibilities for post-carbon construction, eschewing the violence of nails, screws and extractive materials. I have built using straw bales, oakum caulking, canvas, twine, bark and twigs, creating architectural structures rooted in softness. These natural materials help me see hairiness as a tool for recognising ourselves as ecological beings. The surface of my skin is like the surface of the earth: my hair regulating my experience of the atmosphere much like fibrous plants which sway and grow with currents in the air, water and soil. Hairiness reminds me that we are not clean discrete bodies, but entangled in a global ecosystem.
Colloquially speaking, ‘hairy’ can also mean ‘perilous’, ‘precarious’ and ‘unpredictable’. In our collective imagination these two meanings come together in the form of unkempt monsters and witches. Yet [many of] these archetypes find their origins in the colonial and misogynist practices of ‘othering’ and subjugating human and non-human beings which sit beyond paradigms of whiteness, maleness, straightness and wellness. I am endeavouring to form a profoundly feminist and anti-colonial practice which seeks to heal our relationship with ‘hairiness’. I want to give space for unheard stories through the joyful, magical and disarming method of ‘hairy’ thinking and making.
I am considering how hair can be a powerful tool to express identity, and be a space of contested bodily autonomy. It can capture the imagination and shape perceptions in public space, whilst being a site for vulnerability and mutual tenderness in the private realm. In domestic settings and beyond, hair can have a chaotic life of its own, falling off heads and onto clothing, cushions, furniture, bed sheets and carpets. I see these soft surfaces as stages where cultural systems meet bodies. I make domestically scaled and situated art objects which carry stories and provocations with greater emotional agency and intimacy than orthogonal immovable architecture.
Hairy buildings and structures which can be trimmed, sewn, tied or woven together find their origins in indigenous techniques, and offer possibilities for post-carbon construction, eschewing the violence of nails, screws and extractive materials. I have built using straw bales, oakum caulking, canvas, twine, bark and twigs, creating architectural structures rooted in softness. These natural materials help me see hairiness as a tool for recognising ourselves as ecological beings. The surface of my skin is like the surface of the earth: my hair regulating my experience of the atmosphere much like fibrous plants which sway and grow with currents in the air, water and soil. Hairiness reminds me that we are not clean discrete bodies, but entangled in a global ecosystem.
Colloquially speaking, ‘hairy’ can also mean ‘perilous’, ‘precarious’ and ‘unpredictable’. In our collective imagination these two meanings come together in the form of unkempt monsters and witches. Yet [many of] these archetypes find their origins in the colonial and misogynist practices of ‘othering’ and subjugating human and non-human beings which sit beyond paradigms of whiteness, maleness, straightness and wellness. I am endeavouring to form a profoundly feminist and anti-colonial practice which seeks to heal our relationship with ‘hairiness’. I want to give space for unheard stories through the joyful, magical and disarming method of ‘hairy’ thinking and making.