Black Hairstyles

[Mrs. Gooch]

Not sure what to think of this.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/behold/2013/10/15/endia_beal_can_i_touch_it_explores_gender_race_and_generational_gaps_in.html?wpsrc=kwfacebookdt&kwp_0=82573&kwp_4=439538&kwp_1=249438

[Brock Landers]

Interesting.  Maybe time for a new avatar......

[MakeItRain]

How in the world did you find that five year old article? Endia Beal is an attractive woman, and this project was a good idea and a noble concept. However, those "hair dos" are a disgusting travesty and if my wife came home with one I'd tell her so.

[Mrs. Gooch]

It came across my Facebook NewsFeed somehow.

I like that the women were open to a new experience and shared that in the photos, but what is the take-away at the end of the project?

White women look ridiculous in black hairstyles? Or it is just older white women? Black hairstyles are not viewed as professional? Or just when white women wear them? Or just these particular hairstyles are stupid and no one should wear them?

[Emo EMAW]

I think it's all pretty subjective.

[MakeItRain]

It came across my Facebook NewsFeed somehow.

I like that the women were open to a new experience and shared that in the photos, but what is the take-away at the end of the project?

White women look ridiculous in black hairstyles? Or it is just older white women? Black hairstyles are not viewed as professional? Or just when white women wear them? Or just these particular hairstyles are stupid and no one should wear them?

“I wanted people that had a certain idea of what you’re supposed to look like in the workspace, because it would be a challenge for them to understand what I experienced in that space,” she said. “And to a degree, many young white women have shared that experience, but for older white women it’s an experience they haven’t necessarily had.”

BEHOLD
THE PHOTO BLOG
OCT. 15 2013 11:40 AM
White Women, Black Hairstyles
By David Rosenberg
Ellen
Ellen
Endia Beal

It almost sounds like the opening line to a joke: A young black woman takes a bunch of middle-aged white women who she doesn’t know in Woodstock, N.Y., to a black salon, gives them a new “black” hairdo, and then takes their portrait.

Although photographer Endia Beal laughs freely while discussing “Can I Touch It?” the point of the series that she worked on this summer during a five-week residency with the Center for Photography at Woodstock isn’t about getting laughs.

The rules were simple: After getting their new styles, the women had to agree to be photographed in a traditional corporate portrait, even if they weren’t happy with the result.

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Beal decided not to give the women an option of choosing a style. “I said, ‘I am going to give you a black hairstyle,’ and they were like, ‘You’re going to give me cornrows?’ ” Beal recalled of her conversations with her subjects. “And I said, ‘No, we’re going to do finger waves.’ ‘Finger waves? What’s that? You mean from the ’20s?’ And I said, ‘These are a little bit different type of finger waves!’ ”

Christina
Christina
Endia Beal

Ann
Ann
Endia Beal

Beal specifically chose women who were at least in their 40s, but she tried mostly for baby boomers. “I wanted people that had a certain idea of what you’re supposed to look like in the workspace, because it would be a challenge for them to understand what I experienced in that space,” she said. “And to a degree, many young white women have shared that experience, but for older white women it’s an experience they haven’t necessarily had.”

Although the project has a quirky sense of humor, Beal is an artist looking to open a dialogue among people of different gender, race, and generations about the ways in which we express ourselves, specifically in a corporate environment.

Some of these ideas first came to Beal while she was interning in the IT department at Yale while she was there getting her M.F.A. in photography. Beal is tall and black, and at the time she was sporting a large red afro that stood out among her colleagues, who were mostly shorter white males. One colleague told her about a rumor circulating around the office that many of the men were curious about her hair and wanted to touch it.

Being an artist and not wanting to shy away from her afro—or what Beal called “the elephant in the room”—she asked the men to not only touch her hair but to really pull it. She then recorded them a week later on video talking about what was for many of the men a new experience. “I wanted to allow someone to feel something different, to experience something they never had before, and through that experience, they felt uncomfortable,” Beal said. “And then to talk about it kind of amplifies that feeling.”

Charlotte
Charlotte
Endia Beal

Beth
Beth
Endia Beal

Beal knew showing up in a corporate environment with a nonconformist hairstyle might mean she’d have to overcome obstacles, but she didn’t feel that burden should be entirely up to her. Creating an art project seemed a perfect way to bridge the gap.

Many of the women Beal included in the project said they felt excited simply to learn about new products and styles and to be able to ask questions without feeling inappropriate. Beal said the project is all about taking a risk, stepping out of your comfort zone, and trying out a new experience.