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1317
Charbonnet St.
Human hair, mixed media
19"
x 23" x 3.5"
2007
Mourning Portrait, is a series of memorials
to the communities of New Orleans that were devastated by the
flooding which followed Hurricane Katrina. These commemorative
objects are made from human hair extensions of the type commonly
used by African-American women that I found outside the St.
Claude Beauty Supply. The portraits draw on the eighteenth and
nineteenth-century tradition of hairwork, in which family members
or artisans would fashion the hair of the deceased into intricate
jewelry and other objects as symbols of death and rebirth. Working
from my own photographs I weave the hair into portraits of the
vacant houses of the Ninth Ward neighborhood. By documenting
private homes, I venerate the city's losses, both individual
and collective.
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