As a mixed-raced from Guadeloupe, born and raised in Paris I always found myself between worlds, communities, races. Having a multicultural background allows me to have different perspectives on how black people live with their hair in France. In one hand, coming from a French Island where people are mostly black, I didn’t think of nappy hair as an issue. But in the other hand, growing up in a cosmopolitan city with people with very different social, cultural and origin background made me realize that the relationship to nappy hair depends on how you look at yourself, if you feel confident or not about who you are and who you want to be but it also depends on how people look at you. As W.E.B. Du Bois said : “It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.” 

I do not include myself when talking about nappy hair, however, I noticed that a lot of my black friends struggled liking their natural hair, finding an adequate hairstyle and feeling safe about it. This project aims at showing the process of dealing with nappy hair to help my friends be aware of how beautiful they are and to show people outside the community what’s behind braids, afro, wigs…