Hairry Matter
2021
The project Hairy Matter investigates humans’ relationship with body hair in today’s society, imagining a speculativ future in which humans will be in contact with their animality and therefore make peace with their body hair. The project reflects on the stereotypical relationship that society has with women’s body hair while wondering about less anthropocentric futures.
Women from a young age are forced to satisfy societal beauty standards on a daily basis. Body hair removal is seen as part of the norm for women in Europe and women who do not remove their body hair are very often compared to animals. In order to explore this topic, the project is driven by the question “What if body hair was accepted by humans in a society that has found the connection with animality?”. Humans put themselves on the top of the hierarchical pyramid and hairiness reminds them of their animal origin which symbolizes a threat to the top position they have created. Hairy Matter proposes a speculative opportunity to imagine a future where humans could reposition themselves in relationship with nature and animals and therefore change the perspective towards body hair.
Hairy Matter presents a collection of textile wearable artifacts promoting dialogue around the topic and shifting the perception of body hair from disgust to celebration by using irony and humor as a method.
The project aims to open a discussion rather than solve a problem.
Hairy Matter is the master project of Carlotta Sanna and Petra Vicianová.
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