powerful new interactive artwork by artist Lisa Blake invites audiences to listen, reflect, and rethink consent, while celebrating the beauty and individuality of Black women’s hair.
Titled My Hair Is My Identity/Don’t Touch My Hair, the piece explores how it feels when people reach out and touch without permission – an everyday ‘microaggression’ experienced by many Black women that carries deeper emotional weight and cultural significance.
Blake, 50, a recent fine art graduate from the University of Salford and a former care worker and dinner lady, has regularly been on the receiving end of unwanted touch and decided to make an artwork about it.
Working with a group of women at Old Trafford community arts centre OT Creative Space, she has turned an old IKEA rocking chair frame into a beautiful artwork, loaded with meaning. Hanging from the broken chair are long, beaded, shiny braids, fashioned from plaited bin bags and painted clay.
The artwork invites people to sit in the chair, but only after putting on a pair of headphones and listening to Black women talk about the cultural significance of Black hair.
Beside the chair, a large banner will show the backs of Black women’s heads, styled in a range of hair designs. Resembling a traditional hairdresser’s sign, the banner reads Don’t touch the hair.
The installation is part of Reclaimed Narratives, a wider project at OT Creative Space in Old Trafford, supported using public funding from the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
Jamaican-heritage Blake, who has a studio at OT Creative Space on Ayres Road, said: “Like every Black woman, I have experienced unwanted touches to my head and my hair throughout my life.
“Not only is it an invasion of privacy, that makes me anxious, it feels like you are objectifying me and don’t see me as an equal.”
Her work is inspired by American sculptor Tara Donovan, who makes artwork out of everyday objects, from toothpicks to CDs.
“The braids are fashioned from biodegradable bin bags, so one day, they will disintegrate and you won’t be able to tell they ever existed – I hope, like racism,” she said.
“You can touch the chair, and even sit on it, but there’s a bargain: put on the headphones and listen to Black women from Trafford and Manchester talking about the significance of hair, from schools and workplaces policing hairstyles, to blackfishing and cultural appropriation.
“The message is that sometimes, the best thing you can do is just stop talking and listen.”
Dionne Morley, from Old Trafford, was one of the project participants. She said: “I get so uncomfortable when people reach out and touch my hair without asking. It happens all the time.
“I don’t like it as it feels like a private place for people to be touching, plus if I’ve just had my hair done, I don’t want it messed up”
