Roots
2023
The Concept
Roots was my dissertation and visual essay, and I aimed to explore a topic that resonates with me personally while also being relevant to Peckham, my chosen site. Hair is often examined through the lens of fashion, but I wanted to investigate its significance within spatial design. Hair is deeply personal, with individuals forming unique relationships with their chosen styles and expressions. Through my research, I sought to understand the connection between hair and space, exploring how personal identity and cultural narratives are woven into our physical environments.
Requests for the full project can be made through my contact page.
Visual Essay
My visual essay, ‘Tethered,’ represented being tied to something or keeping it in one place. A place is attached to whatever happened before, leading to its shaping in the present. The bigger the event or person, the more renowned or well-known the place is. Peckham’s history is extensive, beginning before London was established as a capital city. The people and events that shaped its appearance are forever tied to the community and the way designers understand space.
My visual essay examines Peckham’s relationship with hair and how new affluent attractions have affected the scene with hair salons. Gentrifying is not a new concept when it comes to deprived areas or ‘High Streets’, however, I wanted to reveal how important it is to keep or change the High Street scene in the hair industry.
Thesis
Following my visual essay, I found that developing the research already spoken about specific to Peckham was key to widening my understanding of hair in terms of ritualistic qualities. The spaces spoken about were mainly in terms of salons and hair shops which only touch the surface of what rituals could reveal about hair and the space attached. Roots can be defined as a basic cause, source, or origin of something meaningful to how rituals identify the origin of people in terms of culture or anthologies.
In my dissertation, I kept in mind the conclusion from my visual essay but extended on how hair has impacted space in terms of its rituals. I wanted to understand the deeper relationship people have with their hair and how it relates to the space they’ve made in association. This was complemented by a documentary interviewing two key figures who are associated with the hair rituals.
My visual essay was accompanied by a physical representation of my findings, embodied in the form of a shoe. I chose a boot to symbolically connect Peckham’s hair industry with the ongoing gentrification that threatens to displace many local salons. These sketches marked the initial stages of my final design, capturing the evolution of this concept. The final design can be seen below in the slideshow.
Tethered
