ABOUT

It is the 16th of September, 2022, and a 22 year old girl has just lost her life because a tendril of her hair escaped her hijab.

In Harlem, a little African American girl is burning her hair, striving to look like the straight haired women in the Tik Toks, music videos and billboards all around her.

In Vrindavan, a widow is shaving her hair, like countless widows just like her, being forced to do so after the passing of their husbands, now that her beauty has no further use.

In the Mahabharat, Dushasana is dragging Draupadi by her hair, a man controlling the will of a woman through her hair, as millions of men will do, to millions of women, across cultures, geographies and timelines.

Covered, controlled, cut down to size, a woman’s hair has been tangled with the patriarchy forever. The Politics of Hair is its history, hitherto hidden behind headlines, today – presented through them. The donation box, asking every viewer to cut her, their and his hair, is a call to break with it.

hair & her
India art fair