guided escapade in the hair and the head of the Ivorian artist Laetitia Ky

Not a single one of her hair escapes Laetitia Ky. The Ivorian artist, who stands out with her hair sculptures unveiled on her Instagram account in 2017, is featured in the film disco boy by Giacomo Abbruzzese, currently in theaters.

His book is also available in bookstores. In Love & Justice – An artistic, committed and militant adventure, published by EPA editions, the young woman talks about herself, evokes her art – her hair sculptures – and her fights, in particular in favor of women’s rights and the promotion “unconditional self-love, social transformation and justice”. The book, organized in chapters around these three themes, is both an autobiography, an exhibition of his work in 135 shots. and “a plea for black culture and beauty”.

By capillarity

“I know that my activist art stands out because I convey my messages in an original way”, Éshe cries. It is the least we can say. Laetitia Ky has devoted herself to it professionally since 2015 by tweaking her own hair which ends up representing symbols, animals, objects or even political and social themes.

The sculptures that made her famous are a series of 12 photos where her hair forms two hands busy doing different things in each shot. The one where her capillary hands hold glasses and her real hands, a book, will be the most shared. A photograph that she revisited by holding her own book, published last March.

His “hair adventures”as explained by Laetitia Ky, born in 1996 in Ivory Coast, go back to her childhood. “I had to ‘improve’ more than twenty barbies”, says the one who very quickly noticed that the famous dolls she was playing with did not have the same hair texture as her. His artistic performances are the story of a reconquest, of a “reconciliation” with his African heritage. “It wasn’t until I started liking myself as a dark-skinned African woman that I wanted to learn about my culture,” she declares.

An intimate adventure

Love & Justice is also an opportunity to learn more about the career of a young woman who became interested in modeling to finance her acting lessons. She became a professional model by signing with the Elite agency in 2019.”I’ve always dreamed of becoming an actress.” The dream will become reality thanks to his compatriot Philippe Lacôte who has made Twelfth Night, the first film in which she participated. However, says Laetitia Ky, “I’d like to pursue a career beyond acting and modeling, and hope to take my art from social media to the physical world of galleries.”

The book is obviously a window on his chaotic relationship with his hair, his raw material now, which has been natural since he was 15 years old. The age at which, thanks to the braids of African-American women, she gave up straightening her frizzy hair after a decade of chemical abuse. Later, it is the ancestral art of hairdressing on the continent that will serve as a source of inspiration.

Love & Justice is particularly intimate, especially in the chapter devoted to self-love, when she evokes the fact of having succeeded in overcoming “(her) eating disorder”. A malaise which started in early adolescence. In this part of the book, she also talks about online harassment. Online activism, she writes, “can also open the door to negative reactions, hatred and intimidation”. “I have always consciously chosen to use my body as a support”, does she claim, hoping to continue to be an inspiration to the young women she has already “changed the lives of some”.

Love & Justice – An artistic, committed and militant adventure, by Laetitia Ky (E/P/A, 224 p., €25)

Extract : “My art first served me to love all aspects of my being – my origins, my colors, my body, my spirit, my status as a woman, my African identity, my whole self -, then I came to use energy and positivity to think bigger.”