Laetitia Ky強壯的頭發(fā)和強有力的信息

Laetitia Ky's strong hair and its powerful message

Laetitia Ky強壯的頭發(fā)和強有力的信息

Growing up, Laetitia Ky never gave her hair much thought, although she learned how to braid at the age of five by watching her mother and took to it easily. "I really didn't care about my hair at all as a teen," she said over Skype with a laugh.

從小到大，Laetitia Ky從來沒有太關注過她的頭發(fā)，盡管她在5歲的時候通過觀察母親學會了如何編辮子，并且很容易學會了。“在我十幾歲的時候，我真的一點也不關心我的頭發(fā)，”她在Skype上笑著說。

But things have changed. In the last two years, Ky has become "Insta-famous" for her intricate hair sculptures that are in turn playful and political -- sometimes both, in a single image.

但情況已經(jīng)發(fā)生了變化。在過去的兩年里，Ky以她復雜的發(fā)型在instagram上走紅，這些造型時而有趣，時而帶有政治色彩——有時在一張照片中同時出現(xiàn)了這兩種風格。

Born and raised in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Ky, now 22, earned a degree in business before realizing that the world of spreadsheets was not for her. Turning her attention to art, she was originally drawn to fashion; she bought a sewing machine and started teaching herself the basics with the help of videos on YouTube.

現(xiàn)年22歲的Ky出生于科特迪瓦的阿比讓，并在那里長大。在意識到電子表格的世界不適合她之前，她獲得了商業(yè)學位。把注意力轉向藝術，她最初被時尚所吸引;她買了一臺縫紉機，開始在YouTube視頻網(wǎng)站上自學基礎知識。

The shift to hair was entirely accidental. Two years ago, scrolling through Instagram, she came across an account with photos of hairstyles worn by women in pre-colonial African tribes. "Their hairstyles were so artistic and incredible," said Ky. "I had never seen anything like it."

轉向頭發(fā)完全是偶然的。兩年前，在瀏覽Instagram時，她發(fā)現(xiàn)了一個賬戶，上面有殖民前非洲部落女性的發(fā)型照片。“他們的發(fā)型非常有藝術感，令人難以置信，”Ky說。“我從來沒有見過這樣的事。

Taking these styles as a starting point, Ky decided to try her hand at hair sculpture. "I did a lot of research and was very inspired by the traditional ways of dressing and doing hair that have been pretty much entirely erased," she said. "Things have come a long way, but even today kinky hair is taboo for some Africans. I want to look back to our traditions and draw from them."

以這些造型為出發(fā)點，Ky決定嘗試用她的手為頭發(fā)做雕塑。她說:“我做了很多研究，傳統(tǒng)的梳頭發(fā)方式給了我很大的啟發(fā)，而這些傳統(tǒng)的梳頭發(fā)方式已經(jīng)被徹底抹去了。”“事情已經(jīng)有了很大的進展，但即使在今天，對一些非洲人來說，卷發(fā)也是禁忌。我想回顧我們的傳統(tǒng)并從中吸取教訓。

Ky shared her work on Instagram, and eventually one post -- in which she sculpted her hair into a second pair of hands -- went viral. In a two-week period, her Instagram account leapt from 4,000 to 30,000 followers (today Ky has 137,000 followers on Instagram and over 36,000 on Facebook). International magazines came calling.

Ky 在Instagram上分享了她的作品，最終有一個帖子——她把自己的頭發(fā)做成了另一雙手——在網(wǎng)上瘋傳。在兩周的時間里，她的Instagram賬號從4000名粉絲躍升至30000名粉絲(如今，Ky在Instagram上有13.7萬名粉絲，在Facebook上有超過3.6萬名粉絲)。國際雜志打來電話。

By then Ky was well into her own hair journey. She went natural in 2012, after a bad experience with too-tight braids. "I looked for solutions on YouTube to get my hair to grow back as fast as possible, and that's when I discovered the natural community, which I didn't even know existed," Ky said.

那時，Ky對她的頭發(fā)之旅已經(jīng)游刃有余。2012年，在經(jīng)歷了一段辮子過緊的糟糕經(jīng)歷后，她選擇了自然發(fā)型。“我在YouTube上尋找解決辦法，讓我的頭發(fā)盡快長回來，就在那時，我發(fā)現(xiàn)了自然群落，我甚至不知道它的存在，”Ky說。

Today Ky adjusts their length depending on the design she wants to create. She sculpts by herself, using little more than wire, wool, a needle and thread. Ky never knows how much time she'll need to complete a project: so far, she said, a single piece has taken anywhere from 20 minutes to up to three hours.

如今，Ky根據(jù)自己想要的設計來調整長度。她自己雕刻，只用金屬絲、羊毛、針和線。Ky從來不知道完成一個發(fā)型需要多少時間:她說，到目前為止，一件作品需要20分鐘到3個小時不等。

"I don't really plan a lot before doing them -- I'm a pretty intuitive person," Ky explained. "I mostly just have an image that comes to mind, like a flash. Then I try to draw it and figure out what I need for it to stay in place.

“在做這些事情之前，我并沒有做太多的計劃——我是一個直覺很強的人，”Ky解釋道。“我腦海中大多只是閃現(xiàn)出一個畫面，就像一道閃電。然后我試著把它畫出來然后想著需要做什么讓它保持不變。

"Anything can inspire me: the news, an object. There are no rules," Ky said.

“任何東西都能激勵我:新聞，一個物體。沒有規(guī)則，”Ky說。

"Sexism exists everywhere, but in Ivory Coast there's still an attitude that women aren't supposed to be ambitious. My parents divorced when I was young, and my mom did everything on her own. So, it was hard for me to accept, later on, when I started hearing that women belong in the kitchen. I think it's really important to spread a message of equality," Ky said.

“性別歧視無處不在，但在象牙海岸，人們仍然認為女性不應該有野心。我很小的時候父母就離婚了，所有的事情都是我媽媽一個人做的。所以，后來，當我開始聽說女人應該在廚房工作時，我很難接受。我認為傳播平等的信息非常重要。”

"It's important that I do it on myself because I want to spread a message of self-love," Ky explained. "So many artists, particularly women, hide behind their work. I think that implicating myself in each piece, and showing a certain self-confidence, could really help people."

“我自己做這件事很重要，因為我想傳達一種自愛的信息，”Ky解釋道。“很多藝術家，尤其是女性，都隱藏在自己的作品背后。我認為把自己融入到每一件作品中，并表現(xiàn)出一定的自信，真的可以幫助人們。