- Who is Sonya Clark?
- Why hair and why in this medium?
- Does she work in other mediums as well?
- Where is she drawing her inspiration? What is her thesis or hypothesis?
- How does she see her work and her process?
- What are the influences Clark is bringing in?
I found some videos of Sonya Clark giving talks about her work and her inspiration. This stretched out several days and goes over 6 hours (though I’m not complaining because I enjoy hearing her talk).
“Sonya Clark: Hair to There: Weaving Tales with Textiles”
Measuring Histories-Sonya Clark
So here are some of the essentail tidbits I got from each talk:
- The basis of her work centers around this quotation by Toni Morrison that delves into this idea of holding memory.
- She talks about finding your authentic obsession: Explore it, connect it, and never let it go.
- Clark’s obsession and thesis centers around hairdressing being a “primordial” fiber art form, this connection between textiles and hairdressing.
- Clark started with textiles because of how material aids in dialogue–she’s interested in cloth and textiles and how they work in metaphysical ways.
- I find her interest in clothing and cloth are important in anthropology because it’s a gateway to understanding social structures, religious practices, and regional practices. It’s a physical, tangible representation of culture.
- She’s interested in how artwork engages in dialogue
- Cloth as DNA, as something that structures who we are.
- She’s interested in how the materiality contains memory and heritage.
- Textiles were a way to connect with her heritage.
- Questions that Clark’s work brings up: How do textiles have power? How do textiles carry cultural capital?
- Mixes textiles in a way that mixes meanings and narratives to create a certain truth
- The idea of the collective and collective memory
- The connection of hairdressing to ritual activity. An activity of love, of connection, of cultural practices, etc.
- Hairdressing as historical ritual processes that encompasses human interaction and creating within a specific group. It’s tangible.
- Triangle Trade = cornrows symbolic of African bodies moving through this human trafficking system.
- Clark tries to actively engage viewers in these themes and question she explores.
- Cloth as a monument
- “The personal becomes universal”
- Hair as who and what we are. Heavily contestd and heavily politized.
- Hair as a portrait of the self and of history
