Is That All Your Hair?

Is That All Your Hair explores the ways in which visual imagery of African-American women and culture specifically in music videos influences the perception of beauty, power, and access that Ivoirian women mimic in their attempts to gain and access resources in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. The demands sometimes economic, social or physical in nature mirror ways that black lives are lived under constraint as the humanity of these women as black subjects is rendered invisible through the negation of their natural hair. The film excerpts will also discuss and analyze the rebirth of the natural hair movement in Abidjan as an answer to the complex intersections of race, history, and culture.

Bibi is a graduate of Smith College in Government and French; holds an M.A. in French Language and Civilization from the New York University of Graduate School of Arts and Science in Paris and a Juris Doctor from North Carolina Central University. Ms. Gnagno received a Fulbright-Clinton in Public Policy where she worked and researched with the Ministry of Justice in Cote d'Ivoire on gender-based violence in relation to women's access to justice. She also started a company called OMG I Love Your Hair and subsequently filmed a documentary entitled Is That All Your Hair?