Yasemin Hassan wasn’t always her hair’s biggest fan - however after working in a corporate career and spending years straightening and adding extensions to her hair, she felt it was time to make a change.

She became a barber and hair stylist, eventually going on to win awards and gain notoriety for her work with curly and textured hair. She brought the conversation around hair, its diversity, and intrinsic part of identity, especially for people of Southwestern Asian and Northern African (SWANA) communities, into the public sphere through her 2 day exhibition, Talking Textures, which showed at Lucky Duck in London from April 12-14. This multimedia art installation featured black and white film portraits showing the intricate details and differences between textured hair that often aren’t highlighted, while a video titled Barbershop chats filled the space with the same ambience you’d experience in an actual salon. The event finalized with a 10 minute short film interviewing people with textured hair in their homes, encouraging viewers to deeply consider their own relationship to their hair before writing their hair confessions on a post-it note and cutting a lock of their own to add to the wall. We sat down with Yasemin to talk about all of these concepts and how identity through hair is a unifying concept that we can all connect on. Her art, including her hair cutting, is driving important conversations around inclusion, what diversity looks like through textured hair, and how to reclaim community in hair spaces.

Blythe: So you recently wrapped the Talking Textures exhibit, how did this idea come to you? Have you always been a hairdresser and have you always been interested in how hair links to identity?

Yasemin: “Yeah so currently I'm a hairdresser working in central London but I didn't start in the industry, I changed careers; I was a recruiter before and went into hairdressing four years ago. I started off as a barber and started cutting men's curly hair, then I did a hairdressing course and started doing curly women's hairdressing as well. I started working with a lot of Turkish and Cypriot people, as well as people from the southwest Asian and African region, and noticed that a lot of them were struggling when it came to embracing their natural hair.

Additionally, while I was on editorial shoots, I realized that a lot of hairdressers didn't know how to work with textured hair, and I think for me, I also struggled with identity and that sense of not knowing what to do with my own hair, even though my family came from that background. My granddad was a barber and a hairdresser and my mum was a hairdresser and she also had curly hair, but straightened it. So I guess I wanted to do a series that challenged Eurocentric beauty standards, and how that kind of links in with identity.”

B: Everything about the exhibit felt very community centric. Is it this sense of community that made you want to switch careers initially or what was the driver behind leaving a more “traditional job”?

Y: “I thought I'd always do a corporate job, especially while I was in recruitment, and I always felt like I just kind of fell into it. When lock down happened, I kind of went through that thing of not what I wanted to do and then a few life things happened and I was like, ‘You know what, I think this is like the time where I just need to change careers now’ because my job wanted me to go more corporate. Around the same time, one of my cousins had come and visited from Cyprus and he had properly coily hair and then I was introduced to more people who were embracing their curls. So I was inspired by the fact that I could actually cut people that were going through a journey to me and from a similar background.

When I went to school, I quickly realized you’re not taught everything and a lot of it is self taught. For example, we were taught how to do Caucasian hair and how to do Afro hair, but not about the textures in between, that's not really a thing. But it’s so different! There are different methods that you need to know how to do and it's very visual, too. So in going into college and asking questions, I realized that some of those questions don't even get answered. It is literally like trial and error.”

B: So you had to put your learning into practice to get the full scope of what you wanted to do.

Y: “Yeah exactly and it’s hard to get through because even in terms of advertising, even curly hair advertising, it's so exaggerated and so perfect. It’s not always representative of our hair because no one's hair texture is all the same, especially in curls, all the way around. When looking at all these advertisements, people think that they're going to be able to come and sit in the chair and get perfect curls like they see on Instagram, which are filtered to hell and digitally done. That's why when I shot the series, I decided to do it all through film, to capture that authenticity, because you can't super edit it to make it look equal all the way around, and you're going to get those slight imperfections. But that’s not a bad thing, it's just that’s how real hair is.”

B: Yes, finding the beauty in the imperfection of the process as opposed to, like you said, the Eurocentric things that we're seeing in the media landscape today. How have you experienced these Eurocentric beauty standards?

Y: “In advertising, we’re always encouraged to straighten your hair, do laser treatments, keratin straightening, and it’s all just to look as western than as possible. Even in the sense of big, thick eyebrows; they’re socially okay now, but that was never seen as something that people wanted to look like before. One of the concepts we go through is called masking identity where we use our hair to cover certain aspects of ourselves, whether that's using fringe to cover our eyebrows or using hair to take away from our natural features such as our noses or our eyes. We're going into a phase now where people are embracing their natural hair more, but if you've experienced trauma before about your hair, how easy is that?”

B: Is that what drove you to emphasize this experience throughout the exhibit?

Y: “I guess so! The whole curation was actually meant to encourage people to question their journeys, whether they’ve acknowledged it or it's been a subconscious thing, but actually trying to trigger a sense of relatability and ‘yeah, actually, I went through the same thing’. I tried to get as many people as possible involved in it so it's not just coming from the point of view of the 13 models we shot, but also like 20-30 people coming together in different formats. Whether that's in their homes or in a barber shop we were actually playing with their hair and shooting them to highlight that everyone has had a similar experience or if not, can relate to some form of the project.”

B: Did you see this as a unifying experience to kind of bridge the gaps within the SWANA communities?

Y: “Yeah, exactly, like I used to have straight hair and extensions and was always encouraged to look as “clean” as possible and having curly hair was considered messy or unkempt. So for me, I’ve always been aware of these stigmas and signals that you get even from your own community, like your parents, your family, your friends, etc. But now, I can see that a lot of people are trying to decolonize that sort of concept, whether that's what's happening in the world, or whether that's the people that they put themselves around, or whether that's trying to go back into a own sense of where they've come from. There is a stance in terms of people wanting to educate themselves on their hair.”

B: Is that what drove you to want to work with Dania Arafeh, Founder of the 3EIB movement?

Y: “Definitely - we brought this idea together into the whole editorial shoot through working with talent from all parts of the region from the makeup artist, to the stylist, to the designers. It was cool to see the different textures within the clothes come together with the other textural aspects of the shoot.”

B: Right, really maintaining and highlighting the authenticity of everybody in their natural state.

Y: “That’s why we shot in black and white, to actually capture the authentic textures without drawing away any sort of attention from the hair and its portraiture. Sometimes you can kind of get distracted looking at the background or the color of the hair, but for us, it was actually like looking more at the shape and the shadows primarily of the hair in the faces.”

B: What made you want to incorporate multimedia into the exhibit and how did those aspects contribute to driving its mission?

Y: “In my experience, sometimes when you go to a gallery, you look at the photos and then you just walk away without really understanding the meaning behind it. So when I was thinking about people being in the space, l wanted it to feel engaging and that people could easily understand the message behind it. That’s why we incorporated the video, Barbershop Chat. In this short film, we’re challenging a lot about the sense of community in the hair space. In the western world, when it comes to haircuts you go in and out and there's no sense people staying just to talk or hangout. Whereas in my granddad's shop, it very much wasn't about the price of the haircut, it was basically people just chilling and having a chat. So the video focuses on the people in the chair talking and hanging for the length of a typical haircut which is about an hour, not necessarily to be viewed but to be heard. Throughout the night, we had the video playing so while people were walking through the exhibition, they were hearing the sounds of people getting their haircut: conversations, laughter, and other ambient salon noise.”

B: Were there other elements that added to this sense of community during the exhibit?

Y: “We created another 10 minute long video that was more meant to be viewed in one sitting. We had it playing on a vintage TV and set the space up to look and feel like a living room. This video featured other people as we went into their homes and spoke with them about their journeys with their hair. We also had converted a lift to give people a chance to sit and listen to this soundscape, which we hoped would encourage people to question the relationships with their hair. We called this aspect of the exhibit ‘Confessions’ as people could anonymously write a private thought or an experience with their hair on post-it note and put it onto the mirrors in the space. Finally, at the end of the show, there sat a salon chair where people were able to be part of the exhibit in a way by cutting a piece of their own hair and adding it to a pinboard. Every element that went into the exhibit was to make it as interactive as possible.”

B: Speaking of the interactive nature, you also hosted a panel discussion during the show. Was there anything that you really took away from having community members brought to the table for discussion? Were there any challenging thoughts that audience members were encouraged to take home with them?

Y: “A big topic that was brought up was how salons overcharge for curly curly haircuts, and how people have gone to like 20, 30 different hairdressers that have years of experience and still don’t know how to cut their hair. I also got the sense that there are still places where you're encouraged to straighten and hairdressers that will still constantly blow dry and cut and style hair straight rather than curly. People were encouraged to ask questions when it came to hair care and it was cool to provide a lot of different viewpoints as I’m a hairdresser and we had another hairdresser on the panel as well, but we also had a writer on who's currently going through that journey herself. She was also able to open up in a unique way because she's in the starting phase of her journey, so it was amazing to share everyone’s personal perspective.

B: How did you see the exhibit transforming or shaping the lens of the viewer towards their own hair and hair journey?

Y: “What I really took from it was, how many people really opened up when it came to writing their thoughts and putting their own hair on the walls. Also seeing so many people with textured hair in the space and seeing them actually want to sit and watch the video. Even people that are not from that part of the world appreciated it and even though they might not even be able to relate to it, they saw the beauty. It’s a multimedia exhibition for everyone to feel educated about textured hair and the industry and also encouraged on their own hair journey even if you do have straight hair - it's not just about curly hair, but hair as a whole. All people have relationships with their hair, whether you don’t want to cut away your length because that’s what makes you feel more feminine or you’re bleaching or coloring your hair, we use our hair as a form of personality and identity, whether you're from the SWANA regions of the world or not.”

B: I love that you’re emphasizing this universal understanding of each other through hair. I think that's a really unique perspective that not a lot of people see as a commonality because, like you said, we all do have different hair types and textures. But there is that common sentiment, where our emotions show up in our hair, as it’s a common experience to use your hair to express yourself. Do you see barbers and hair stylists like yourself as a catalyst for this kind of change globally?

Y: “I never wanted it to be about me being a hairdresser, obviously I am one and a lot of a lot of people know me as such, but I wanted to put this project together to get people to relate to certain aspects about their journey with hair. Bringing hairdressers out from behind the chair to give people the sense of ‘oh, wow, other people do feel like this as well.’ It's quite nice to have it all in one bit, bringing people together under this shared experience.”

B: I think the salon can be kind of an intimidating place for some people who are maybe not as comfortable or aren't in the same phase of embracing their natural hair. I feel like the exhibit redefined what a hair space can look and feel like, instead of somewhere that's a little bit more intimidating or a place that isn't as inclusive. Those who came to the exhibit can see it through that different lens.

Y: “I think a lot of times when people come in to get their hair done, they think that we're actually judging their hair, as opposed to encouraging their journey with it. So, I hope so. I hope they just felt a little bit less like that.”

B: I think that lends itself to the idea that there’s not as much community or connecting in these spaces anymore. People just want to go in and say sorry about their hair and then have it fixed. I think you're really making it much more raw of an experience but in a really positive way.

Y: “Oh, thank you. I think hairdressing isn’t really seen as a creative form so it isn’t generally treated that way even by people getting their haircut. I think a lot of the arts world doesn’t really consider hairdressers artists. For me, this series is showing the actual art form behind cutting hair. For example, during editorial shoots, hair styling often falls at the bottom of the list and doesn’t get enough time. However during our shoot, we gave hair 4-5 hours and then only 30 minutes of photographing the models, which ended up working really well for us. Putting hair at the forefront of our art is what gave us the results that we hoped for.”

B: I love seeing hair as like the baseline to shape like the rest of the experience, I think that just goes into how it's so tied to identity. As you said, it's not typically seen through the lens of an art form or a part of the creative process, but it's so intrinsic to who we are as people, it would make sense for it to be more prominently featured. Was there a part of the process or any moment that really stuck with you or left a major impression?

Y: “I loved having some of the people that trained me how to do hair take part in the shoot! Everyone was just helping each other out, it was such a great experience. I also loved visiting the Confessions section and seeing everyone’s post-its. People actually, really opened up, even though I never knew how well received it was going to be. For me, it was really about seeing how it resonated with people and seeing the vision actually come to life. Also seeing the short video that was on the vintage TV was amazing as I actually didn't have a plan of how I kind of wanted it, I kind of wanted it to be a bit more freestyle. So it was cool listening to the cuts that had been done of people talking about the products that they use and seeing the less “aesthetic” parts of their bathrooms through polaroids we took of their hair in the drain or their products on the shelves and stuff like that. Bathrooms are like such an important part of the process - they have so much character!”

B: What's coming up next on the heels of this project?

Y: “I'm thinking about doing two things, I'm either going to try and tour the series in different places around England and then maybe go international with it. Or I'm going to create a whole new series of concepts, taking the post-it notes with me to kind of spark new ideas. There are a few things that I'm thinking about, putting the initial plans in motion so hopefully, you’ll see more of the series come to life.”

B: How do you hope to see this kind of education expanding past the exhibit?

Y: “Having more of a platform and being able to work with different creatives from the region - I think I'd actually like to build a space with it and see where it goes. However, I think every single time I've had a solid plan with something, it stops me from thinking outside of what can go beyond that. I think right now, I'm quite open to everything. I have a few ideas, but nothing is going to be set in stone. I still want to sit with this exhibit and see what different options come with that but I know from speaking to a few people from outside of the team and within, that this won't be the last of it.”

B: Do you have any advice for people who are still struggling to embrace their natural hair, or struggling to see it as a beautiful part of their identity?

Y: “A lot of people say that they don't have time to do their hair and that's why they don't look after it, but I think once you start actually making a little bit of time, and not going into this whole internet-crazed curly hair method and running to get every single new product, is what will really change your relationship with hair. Taking the time to think about what it is about your hair that you’re not liking or what you want to change is the first step. It’s not all about the most expensive brand new products, but it's actually moving into a deeper understanding of your hair.”

Yasemin’s Faves

3 Favorite Styling Products

Innersense Beauty ‘I Create Volume’ Volumizing Lotion
Banyan Botanicals Healthy Hair products
Only Curls Mega Hold Curl Gel

Favorite Tool?

“A DIFFUSER, specifically the Fabulous Pro one that’s like £10. It’s my staple, I've been using it since I've been training and I've never stayed away from it. I’ve used the same one since the beginning and was committed to not getting a new one because I’m superstitious but mine recently broke so off to the store I go.”

Favorite hairstyle that you’ve had?

“I've always loved the top knot! Everyone's always like, why? And I don't know - I'm just here for it. I’ve never been that experimental with my hair, I've literally had the same cut for years. Once I tried a drastic mullet and it was not for me.”

Favorite cut you’ve given a client?

“I really love working with shapes and big volume curls. I think having a solid shape and then adding a good fringe looks really nice. I also love the fact that guys now are really growing their hair and embracing their curls. I think it's such a nice change to see because long hair is typically considered quite feminine, but seeing the fact that now guys are wanting to have different styles and not just a short back and sides has been nice to see. I feel like that's even in itself, a disruption to beauty standards and disrupting traditional, Eurocentric norms. Long hair is not seen as traditionally masculine forward, but I love the pivots that are happening.”

Favorite hair routine?

“In the mornings when I'm refreshing, I actually don't like using a water spray bottle. I always just get really cold water, put it in my hands, and scrunch it in. Then I use a thickish curl cream and have that set there. It’s simple but it’s what really works at the moment and I'm just going with it until I need to try something different. I'm not fixing what's not broken.”

Although the exhibit for Talking Textures is now closed, you can still view Yasemin’s work and stay up to date with her upcoming exhibits.

Yasemin would like to thank Kohl’s for providing the complimentary event gift bags and Wolf Kings Cross where she works for providing the space to shoot and for all of their support during this process as well. Finally she would like to say just how grateful she is to everyone in the community that helped her put everything together for this exhibit and her appreciation to everyone who attended.

Yasemin Hassan is an award winning hairstylist based in London. She is the Director and Curator of Talking Textures, an initiative celebrating diverse expressions of hair and identity. Yasemin brings her perspective as a hairstylist to the forefront of her work, seamlessly blending artistry with advocacy. With a passion for fostering inclusivity and empowerment, she is dedicated to challenging societal norms and promoting self-expression through the project.

Images by Vasco Oliveira

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