HAIR: Identity in the Afroworld

Volunteers and community curators at Ferens Art Gallery were making an exhibition about Black hair as identity, artistry and cultural legacy: HAIR: Identity in the Afroworld. They asked me to make portraits for it. This time, a gallery asked.

I chose to show the hairstyles through people. Ten people from Hull’s Black and mixed heritage communities, each photographed, each listened to. I also brought in augmented reality (AR), so their voices could sit alongside their portraits, and they could tell their stories in their own words.

Struggle can shape us, but it can’t tell the whole story of who we are.

I wanted people who might not often see themselves celebrated on gallery walls to walk into the Ferens and recognise their own beauty there. To honour their experiences while making room for their joy, their style and their everyday lives. Struggle can shape us, but it can’t tell the whole story of who we are.

Eight sittings over three days.

Oggy first, one evening. At ten years old she was meant to go to the salon for cornrows. Instead she walked into a barber’s and had her hair cut into an afro. Even then, she knew her hair was hers to define.

The next four sittings. Kofi at lunchtime. At fourteen his hair began to lock on its own, and when he looked in the mirror it resembled an anime character. At school, another student asked, “Why does he style his hair like that?” Before Kofi could answer, a different kid said, “Because it’s cool!” Someone had seen him and spoken up for him. Now he describes his locs as the freedom to define himself.

Zivarna in the afternoon. When she was little, her family didn’t know what to do with her texture, and her gran called the result “a bit up, a bit down”. Relaxers burned her scalp, and that was treated as normal. Then came the big chop. “It was joyous and empowering. Just being me.”

Then Angelica, known to her friends’ parents as “the girl with the hair”, and Stevenson, who has worn cornrows, an afro and a jerry curl in his time. He keeps it very short now. “Not as much as it used to be,” he said, “but I’m grateful to have some.”

How often the boldness we’re looking for is already in us.

The day after, Ysabelle, Efia and Ruth.

Ysabelle remembered her mum or grandma tapping the comb on her knuckles when she reached for her head mid-plait. “It hurt at the time, but it makes me smile now.” The connection those rituals made still holds.

Efia grew up in Hull without a Black hairdresser. At thirteen she travelled to Leeds for her first salon appointment, and the stylist told her she had lovely hair. “It meant so much to me, coming from a Black woman. I felt seen.”

Hairdressers in the small town where Ruth grew up didn’t want to touch her hair. Now she wears it out and proud. During her shoot she said, “I want to be wild and free like my hair.”

I keep thinking about that. About recognising something in ourselves that we are still learning to live. How often the boldness we’re looking for is already in us. In Ruth’s case, literally.

The last two. Sulaiman had to cut his hair in 2023. “It was very sad for me,” he said, “but I had to just do it.”

Clarion had not long moved to Hull from Nigeria. When people are curious about her hair, she doesn’t mind. “I actually find it a bit endearing,” she told me. “People are just curious.” Not everyone I photographed feels that way. Both are true.

Our conversations moved between childhood memories, expectations and the freedom of deciding how to wear your hair.

Making beautiful portraits was part of the care.

There were memories of pressure to straighten, comments at school, and hands reaching out without permission. “You do not have permission to touch me,” Zivarna said. There was also pleasure, humour and pride, and I wanted all of it to come through in the work.

Making beautiful portraits was part of the care: giving each person the attention and space they deserved.

The week of opening, I was still finishing the ten short films that live inside the portraits. The last one was done in the early hours.

A photograph can hold someone’s face, their hair, the way they carry themselves. It can’t hold their voice. So I gave each portrait a second layer. Hold your phone up to it on the wall and it opens into a short film of that person and their hair story, in their own words, with the words on screen.

There is something sacred to me about documenting someone who has felt overlooked. About making space for their beauty to be seen as they are, and their stories heard in their own words. Giving their voices a place within the portraits made AR a means of shared authorship: each person could help shape how they were represented.

You don’t need to understand photography or AR for any of this. Just come with an open heart.

There is something sacred to me about documenting someone who has felt overlooked.

On 6 June, HAIR opens at the Ferens. Free to walk in. Oggy’s portrait is on the poster. Ten portraits on a gallery wall, of people who don’t often see themselves on one. People hold up their phones, and the portraits start to talk.

It ran until 17 August.