Sin Wai Kin (fka Victoria Sin), Farrah Riley Gray, Rada Koželi
December 2020 – @Artoday
Trucco e Parrucco 'Hair and Makeup'
What links the royalties of the Chinese Zhou Dynasty — who painted their nails with a mixture of beeswax and egg — with 1960s hippies, who let their body hair grow long regardless of American decorum?
Countless examples from across nations and timelines demonstrate how hair and makeup can frame individuals in regards to their gender, class and background. As social constructs, they foster our identity and influence the relationships we weave with the collectivity in any given society or social group.
Hair and makeup could freeze a body within oppressive heteronormative systems but also twist and liberate that same body, generating legacies. They make our sense of belonging explicit, outlining social status and privilege — or lack thereof. But, more than anything, they are shapeshifters: a potential for protest and anti-conformity prompting politics of resistance, while echoing our fantasies and dreams.
Claudia Contu
Victoria Sin, “Something more violent than recognition” (2017) Coll. British Museum. Courtesy of the artist. 
Victoria Sin, “What have you gained along the way?” (2017) Coll. British Museum. Courtesy of the artist. 
Farrah Riley Gray, “Together” (2020). Courtesy of the artist. 
“Together” (2020) part. Courtesy of the artist. 
Rada Koželi, “Pravda” (2019). Courtesy of the artist. 
Rada Koželi, “Pravda”, part. Courtesy of the artist.
Claudia Contu 