Fowler in Focus: The Art of Hair in Africa

The Fowler Museum at the University of California Los Angeles has opened a new exhibition presenting an array of finely sculpted combs and hairpins from Africa and its diasporas, along with the film Me Broni Ba/My White Baby by Ghanaian-American filmmaker Akosua Adoma Owusu. It explores the notions of ideal beauty and social status associated with hair among many African cultures. The juxtaposition of traditional hairpins and combs made from rare materials with an avant-garde contemporary film raises questions about constructions of identity in Africa from the colonial period to today.

View the official exhibition website.

Comb  -  Probably Djuka, Surinam  -  20th century

Comb  -  Asante, Ghana  -  ca 1900

Comb  -  Chokwe, D.R. Congo

Images courtesy of the Fowler Museum, UCLA