Hairytage: Drawing the project together
The Hairytage project has been the largest and longest project that the CCE has run. It has developed over 2 events, in a total of 9 days, running 13 workshops, with 10 workshop facilitators and over 160 students taking part alongside members of the local community.
All of the workshops used creative methods.As you have seen in these pages, creative methods are varied. We have used traditional art practices such as painting, photography, poetry or literature to discuss a topic, but we have also employed creative methods to create an environment where people feel comfortable. The Debate Cakes are a good example of this, where sharing food creates a more relaxed environment, or by sitting around a map can instantly connect people as they point out where they live. By asking questions that can only be responded to through making a mark rather than having to speak can often mean more people respond as the pressure to verbalise a thought is removed. The other interesting thing about developing creative research projects is that you never know where they will lead.There is no set outcome or research output. There isn’t a right or wrong answer, and in most cases there’s no answer at all, just further questions. What is evident from this project is that creative practices create connections, spaces where people come together from different age ranges, social groups, cultural backgrounds to discuss often difficult issues. What comes out of this process isn’t a way of fixing the problem, but highlights that through exploring issues together and sharing experiences we learn and connect with each other. It is through creating connections with people that we can start to make shared memories, this seemingly simple process can then be the impetus to effect social change. |
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Hairytage: The Final Cut
Hairytage film reflecting on the process
As the Hairytage workshops evolved over the first two events at the Peckham festival and Peckham Levels as part of Black History Month, the creative conversations were captured with the hairy thread that was made up from the hair collected from the school and the local community. Words and memories were stitch into a fabric throughout the events and came together to create an archive of the Hairytage project in the form of a gown. The gown represents the Hairytage journey, from the initial research in the Afro Caribbean hairdressers documented in the Hairytage film by Alix, through the various collaborations to form an archive that would embody the project. The gown is reminiscent of a hair dressers gown that you would wear when going to have your hair cut. What became important when designing the gown as an archive was that it needed to be worn, it needed to be embodied for the archive to come alive. It was important that the gown could be mobilised as a living archive, not something to be stored away and looked at, but worn and added onto with new memories and experiences.
The concluding event therefore was constructed as a performance rather than a static event. The gown, represents the movement of the research as it evolved out of the hairdressing salons and into the community. During the performance the hair dresser gown becomes an outfit with the stitched hairy words creating a hairy boarder. When the outfit is complete, materials memories from the research are added. People are invited to come and read the memory out loud before attaching it to the outfit. As memories are shared, the outfit becomes the research assemblage. The gown is a material archive but is also a performative archive, it is meant as a garment to wear to remember passed memories but also embody future possibilities of Peckham.
The concluding event therefore was constructed as a performance rather than a static event. The gown, represents the movement of the research as it evolved out of the hairdressing salons and into the community. During the performance the hair dresser gown becomes an outfit with the stitched hairy words creating a hairy boarder. When the outfit is complete, materials memories from the research are added. People are invited to come and read the memory out loud before attaching it to the outfit. As memories are shared, the outfit becomes the research assemblage. The gown is a material archive but is also a performative archive, it is meant as a garment to wear to remember passed memories but also embody future possibilities of Peckham.