Wood, steel, hair bands, bobby pins, hair, wool, leather

Hair has transformative power. The braid is a cross-cultural ritual passed down through generations that stitches together past, present and future, and weaves fragility into strength. Tools and hair both embody meanings based upon their proximity to bodies. The absent body invites the audience to consider the intricate language of hair, and how it can reflect or hide the true self.

Braided Tools are a series of hybrid instruments crafted by displacing the traditional “blade” of each device and assimilating the handle with the intimate, corporeal material of hair. These sculptures reference shapes from ritual implements used in the sacred and the everyday, and how objects can be fetishized by a foreign gaze.