In Naples Laetitia Ky: «I use my hair as feminist sculptures»
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the exhibition
NoonMarch 3, 2023 – 08:07
The Ivorian activist, model and artist: «I defend blackbeauty». It is in the film, «Disco boy» by the Salento director Giacomo Abbruzzese, who obtained the Silver Bear in Berlin
Of Mirella Armiero
Her hair is sculptured: it towers over Laetitia Ky’s head and represents from time to time hands, muscular arms, faces with raised fists, elephants, female breasts and bellies. Or snakes writhing around her beautiful face. At 27, Laetitia Ky is the youngest artist exhibiting at the 2022 Venice Biennale in the Ivory Coast Pavilion. On Friday 3rd, her personal exhibition «The gaze of Medusa» opens at Made in Cloister, a hyper-contemporary space in the heart of the oldest part of Naples, at Porta Capuanto. Laetitia Ky is a women’s rights activist, model and actress fresh from recognition at the Berlin Film Festivalwhere the film he starred in, “Disco boy” by Salento director Giacomo Abbruzzese, won the Silver Bear.
A frenetic activity, which began when she was a young girl. How does one become an artist in an African metropolis like Abidjan?
«I started in 2016, when I accidentally discovered an album of archival precolonial photos. The women exhibited their hair sculptures, or very elaborate hairstyles, made by braiding their hair with mud, as an identifying element that indicated their ethnicity or religion. With the French colonization Western fashion took over, so Ivorian women started to have their hair straight. For me, however, our nature should not be hidden, it is an element of black beauty ».
So she started posting hairstyle pictures on Instagram?
“Yes, it started as a social game, initially intended for the circle of my friends and family. But then they started following me in many, more and more numerous. Thus I was able to perceive the power of the media and from a creative game my activity became artistic, with a political message. I have been contacted by many African American women who felt discriminated against and who saw hair as a means of redemption. Even Michelle Obama had felt the need to smooth them. Seeing yourself represented with fearless Afros is a step forward.”
shadow carousel
The hair sculptures of Laetitia Ky
How long does it take to make a hair sculpture?
«From ten minutes to 4 or 5 hours, it depends on the subject. I use wire and after photographing the construction I obviously eliminate it».
Are women discriminated against in the Ivory Coast?
«The country still has a strong patriarchal structure and elementary school girls are shaved so as not to be a source of distraction for men. When they grow up they collect their hair in very tight braids. This is why my work touches on so many taboos that still exist. When the boys are given a ball to play with, the girls get the broom to clean the floors. Even if today the number of women who “make noise”, who seek to emancipate themselves, is growing. Personally, I have always been a rebel and resented inequalities. After all, my mother was an example of autonomy. After the divorce from my father she had looked after us daughters and the house but she had also worked a lot ».
What were your cultural references?
«As an artist Frida Kahlo. Like writers JK Rowlings and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie».
The latter tells in her novels of a “bourgeois” emigration, revealing to the West that those who leave Africa are often not desperate but a person who tries to live better, to put their studies to good use.
«I remember that a friend of my mother’s, who worked for us, left to try to improve her condition. When I was little I didn’t understand, but then I saw that if I didn’t leave the opportunities would have been non-existent. And in any case, deciding to leave one’s country is not easy, even today I find many difficulties when I travel. I’m planning an exhibition in Paris and a talk at the Tate Modern in London and every time I need a visa, bank guarantees, medical guarantees, etc. In our global world, goods travel without problems, people a little less».
You also experienced the civil war in your country and you know the problems of those forced to flee…
«There is a great hypocrisy in the West: if you flee from Africa it is because our continent has been the subject of partition and exploitation. However, there is also a responsibility of African politicians, who are often corrupt or unable to manage money».
What was it like playing your character, a Nigerian fighter, in the movie “Disco boy”?
“I didn’t know Nigeria at all or its pidgin language, I had to do a lot of work. The film is not very discursive, more mimic. The director wanted a lot of physicality and neutral expressions from us actors, not easy for Africans. I had to work by subtraction, but it was very exciting».
Will she continue to be an actress?
«I made “Clash”, a series directed by Philippe Lacôte. A secret dream? A film for Marvel, I’d like to make a superheroine, after all I’ve worked a lot on my body, from a very slender structure I’ve moved on to more structured muscles. And then it’s not true that women are the weaker sex, they can fortify themselves ».
Would you do your hair straight for Marvel?
“Not that, never.”
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March 3, 2023 | 08:07
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