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The profound history of reverence for hair in African pre colonial societies has been marginalized to the outskirts of history.
By shaving the hair, the colonizers forcibly erased the autonomy and identity of the enslaved. "Ancestral Trees of Remembrance and Tradition" aims to reflect on what the embodiment of the potential reconciliation of people on the African continent and of the African diaspora could look like using Afrofuturistic aesthetics.
Synthetic kanekalon hair applied in swirls represents the precolonial concepts of time (and life) as multiple, cyclical and changeable.
The hash wire represents negative limitation, borders and containment and can lead to bloodshed if mishandled. But there are also positive limitations that allow for the cultivation of tradition. Thus, the wire also stands for community - a space for birth, development, and the possibility of departure.
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Germanisches NationalMuseum
Ausstellungszeit/ Exhibition Period
30. März – 11. Juni 2023,
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