A Statment Of Pride
2017-2027
A Statement of Pride is a ten-year, self-archival project in which I document my Afro hairstyles through passport-style photographs. The series began organically from past experience of judgment on my hair, taken in photo booths on my way to university or while out with friends, each time I re-styled my hair. What started as a casual habit has become an evolving visual record of identity, transformation, and cultural memory.
By placing each hairstyle within the formal and restrictive frame of a passport photograph, I deliberately reclaim a space historically used for identification, surveillance, and limitation. I treat this format as a site of self-definition. Each portrait becomes a personal affirmation, a counter-narrative that challenges how Black bodies and Black hair have been regulated or misread.
The work grows from my intimate relationship with my hair, its creativity, versatility, and the different personas it allows me to inhabit. My styles often reference women I admire, from musicians to cultural icons, to other women sharing what they have styled with their afro hair and recreating their looks is both homage and gratitude. These influences remind me of the continuum of Black women whose presence shapes my own.
At its core, A Statement of Pride is also an exploration of heritage, representation, and belonging. Black hair carries deep cultural, historical, and social significance; it is a site where identity is negotiated and affirmed. For me, doing my hair, braiding, styling, parting, tending to its texture is both an act of self-care and a practice of self-knowledge. It is a ritual that connects me to generations before me and to the communities that sustain our traditions such as social media and the afro hair movement.
Through this long-term project, I am creating a visual archive that honours the richness of Black culture and the resilience embedded in our hairstyles. Each image asserts that Black hair is not simply aesthetic. It is history, memory, pride, autonomy, and power. It is my way of documenting who I am, where I come from, and the cultural legacy I carry forward. Whatever your style, wear it with Pride.