The Hunt is a photography project operating as a brief encyclopaedia of female hairstyles from various periods in time, within the cultural frame of Western culture. The anonymous figures appear as ornate statues: characterised by their hair’s aesthetic association to various revisited stereotypes, they form an unusual yet all too recognisable collection of trophies.

Hair lies on the margins of the physical self. In a quest for ideals, it has, since early times in history, been central to the expression of women’s appearance. It is considered a sacred body part, heavily charged with eroticism, and several religions forbid its sight. It also embodies the notion of sacrifice: the control of one’s body, in most elaborate forms, to confer a sense of beauty, order, and belonging. In the western world, it has seen growing transformations across time, and reveals the characters women have associated with at various periods, dictated by historical trends and popular culture.

Even to this day, the viewer will fall for the stigma and label the individual. The anonymous nature of the series activates our mind’s associative aptitude, while strongly relying on one’s own fantasies and projections of sensuality, innocence, order, freedom, frivolity, or social rank.

The series wishes to demonstrate the standardised mechanism of association between signified and signifier. The inverted form of the images points out the systematic and signifying quality of each style, as trends echoing throughout times, re-enforcing the prototype-like aspect of the presented ‘categories’, or referents. To an extent, the blue hues transform distinct hairstyles into surrealist sights, akin to deep-sea creatures. This ambiguity emphasises the resonance of mythological stories and the role they play in our perception of ‘feminine’ attributes. Here, hair acts as a pointer to constructed gender. Echoing classical art, the images become the referent to a mystified icon rather than the actual portrait of an individual.
The project was made in collaboration with British hair stylist Kim Rance.