Providence Public Library 2018 Exhibition & Program Series Kicks Off February 28 with a Free Exhibition Launch Party
Providence Public Library 2018 Exhibition & Program Series Kicks Off February 28 with a Free Exhibition Launch Party
Four-month HairBrained Exhibition & Programs to Focus on Hair
MEDIA TOUR, INTERVIEW & PHOTO OPPORTUNITIES
PROVIDENCE, RI – Providence Public Library’s (PPL) fourth annual Exhibition & Program series called HairBrained is focused on hair. Specifically, the exhibition explores the ways in which hair defines and reflects culture, self-identity, agency, and politics. Meanwhile, the program series, which is inspired by images and texts in the exhibition, will offer cultural programs and educational activities for all ages that explore how and why we have grown, cut, shaved, shaped, woven, adorned and covered the hair on our heads, from centuries ago ’til today.
HairBrained Launch Party: Wednesday, February 28 – 6 – 8 pm
Join us Weds., February 28 from 6 – 8 pm, in PPL’s Grand Hall (150 Empire Street, Providence) for Launch Party celebrating the opening of the HairBrainedExhibition. The event is free and open to all! Enjoy site-specific performances created in response to the exhibition by PPL’s Creative Fellow Becci Davis, and poet/performers Orlando Hernández and Sussy Santana! Attendees are urged to wear their hair (head and face) creatively for the occasion and will be invited to share hair memories great and ghastly during the event!
Visit and take a curatorial tour of our brand new exhibition from PPL’s Special Collections, focused on hairstyles throughout history and the ways in which hair defines and reflects culture, self-identity, agency, and politics. https://provlib.libcal.com/
HairBrained Exhibition
Hair is simultaneously frivolous and serious, personal and universal. It’s a means to communicate complex messages to everyone we encounter. In this exhibition, we focus on hairstyles around the world and throughout history via a selection of items from PPL’s Special Collections. Exhibition materials will include books, prints, magazines, and photographs. Items will be on exhibit in the Providence Journal Rhode Island Room on Level 1 from March – June 2018.r
provlib.org/subject-guides/
We invite you to learn more by visiting the exhibition, attending HairBrained programs and events, engaging with Sussy Santana’s poetry, and checking out the recommended reading at provlib.org/subject-guides/
HairBrained Programs
Our calendar of upcoming HairBrained cultural and educational programs and events for all ages, running March through June, is available at www.provlib.org.Upcoming program highlights include:
MARCH
Wednesday, March 7
6 – 8 pm, PPL 3rd Floor Meeting Room
Aminah Fonseca and Shahidah Ali, Mixx Hair Bar on “The Evolution of Hair in Black History, 1400 – 2018.” https://provlib.libcal.com/
Sundays, March 11, 18 & 25
Big Nazo Headdress Workshop Series, Ages 7-12 (must register for and attend all)
2 – 4 pm, PPL 5th Floor Classroom
Monday, March 12
6 – 8 pm, PPL 3rd Floor Meeting Room
Dr. Quincy Mills, Associate Professor of History and Director of Africana Studies on his book Cutting Along the Color Line: Black Barbers and Barber Shops in America (2013). https://provlib.libcal.com/
Wednesday, March 14
6 – 8 pm, PPL 3rd Floor Meeting Room
Artist Kenya (Robinson) explores main mainstream aesthetics and offers a critical analysis of blondness, baldness, and beauty related to our collective hair politic, identification of gender, and normalization of whiteness. https://provlib.libcal.com/
Wednesday, March 21
6 – 8 pm, PPL 3rd Floor Meeting Room
“Hair as Holder of Memory/Artistic Medium” — Artist Nafis White in conversation with Victorian hair jewelry historian/practitioner Karen Bachmann. https://provlib.libcal.com/
APRIL
Sunday, April 2
6 – 8 pm, PPL 3rd Floor Meeting Room
An evening with style blogger Leah Vernon, who will speak about her life as a young, brown, fashionable, hijab-wearing Muslim woman. https://provlib.libcal.com/
Monday, April 16
6 – 8 pm, PPL 3rd Floor Meeting Room
Art historian/author Suzzane Scanlan will speak on the meaning of head coverings in the sensual, demonic, frescoes commissioned for a Roman convent in the 15thcentury, as described in her new book Divine and Demonic Imagery: Religious Women and Art in 15th Century Rome. https://provlib.libcal.com/
###