The winter feature exhibit at Surrey Art Gallery explores the rituals, traditions and politics of hair.
The work of 10 Canadian artists is showcased in the new group show “un/tangling, un/covering, un/doing,” assembled by SAG associate curator Suvi Bains.
“For me, this (exhibit) is a few years in the making,” Bains said Thursday (Jan. 25).
“I feel so many different types of emotions with this exhibit, now that it’s being shown here,” she added. “I feel incredibly proud. It’s such a gift and honour to showcase these artists.”
The multimedia show features the work of Audie Murray, Rebecca Bair, Wally Dion, Clare Yow, Sharon Norwood, Sarindar Dhaliwal, Karin Jones, Baljit Singh, Kiranjot Kaur and Natasha Kianipour. The artists have a variety of cultural backgrounds including Indigenous, Black, South Asian and Chinese.
“They have their own complex histories with hair and their own personal experiences with it,” Bains noted.
Collectively, the art celebrates and reveals responses to an individual’s association with hair and its many manifestations, in photographs, video, poetry, paintings, drawings, audio and more.
Growing up in Abbotsford, Bains recalls pressures of assimilation involving her hair.
“I had a long braid, which is part of our culture, and I’ll never forget the first time I cut it, when I was in Grade 6. You want to assimilate. It was a sad moment because I felt like it was cutting memory, cutting lineage, family ties, you know, tradition.”
Bains said she wants children to see the hair-focused exhibit she curated.
“There are so many children going through their own kind of hair struggles and hair traumas, so I really want children to come in and know that they’re valued, they’re beautiful, even with beauty standards (in society).”
Views of Surrey Art Gallery's winter exhibit exploring the rituals, traditions and politics of hair.
— Tom Zillich (@TomZillich) January 25, 2024
STORY: https://t.co/YN5dPXVjyF pic.twitter.com/gzssGrs0ra
For the art show, some people urged Bains to include an installation where people could touch and feel hair, but she resisted.
“Not a chance,” she said. “Hair is not for touching.”
The exhibit features a photo and three-channel video installation by artist Rebecca Bair, a founder of Surrey’s Black Arts Centre, located near City Parkway and 104 Avenue.
Bair’s work showcases her hair, shadows and light.
“I use my hair often in my work because I think of my hair as a site for care, both that I kind of involve myself in but then also broadly in the community,” Bair told the Now-Leader in a phone call.
“I only allow certain people to touch my hair,” she added. “I sit between the legs of my aunt or my mom, or it’s sometimes a stranger to get my hair done. But those moments of care are so intense and so wonderful. So I think of hair as a really rich and fantastic space for care.”
Black Arts Centre (BLAC) is the community partner for the exhibition and the organization has included a reading nook for all ages titled New Growths.
On view at the Bear Creek gallery until March 17, “un/tangling, un/covering, un/doing” involves an opening event and panel discussion Friday, Feb. 9, starting at 6:30 p.m. The evening begins with exhibiting artists Bair, Dion and Yow in discussion with Bains, followed by a poetry performance by Kianipour and music by DJ Hafiz.
On Feb. 21, in celebration of Black History Month, admission is free for a film screening of “School Daze,” written and directed by Spike Lee, starting at 5:30 p.m. The event will include a conversation between BLAC curator Olumoroti (Moroti) Soji-George and Bains on topics of hair presented in the film.