Eight years ago, Ayanna Morris was struggling with her identity as a Black woman. She felt insecure and was trying to figure out her career path. During that time, she came up with the idea of “Don’t Touch My Hair.”
“When I was a little girl, I never dreamed about marriage or having kids. I always thought I would have a big career, single with a cat,” she tells Black Enterprise. “My life has been the opposite of that. I’m a married woman with multiple children. I balance being a supportive wife and mom, but [my] career did not grow as I envisioned.”
Morris is a designer, film director, and producer known for her 2022 documentary, “Why Are We Americans,” which explores the life and legacy of poet Amiri Baraka. She says being a wife and mom are her greatest titles. Still, she was searching for the opportunity to be made whole, especially after Newark Moonlight Cinema, the Black-owned drive-in theater she created during the pandemic, closed.
Nearly 10 years after she came up with the idea, Morris’s dream of Don’t Touch My Hair has come to pass. Her immersive mobile experience will debut during the Newark Arts Festival, The Culture Parlor. It’s more than an experience that explores a common request from Black women.
Don’t Touch My Hair celebrates Black women and hair culture. Morris says it’s a space where she hopes guests find their voice and make peace with who they are.
“It’s a rallying cry to galvanize women and to decolonize people to find their strength and celebrate their uniqueness,” says Morris. “The exhibit celebrates our beauty […] grit and tenacity.”
Inspired by her husband, who was building a home out of shipping containers, Don’t Touch My Hair is in a modified shipping container designed with an archway of 3D-printed hands, symbolizing the unsolicited and intrusive act of touching a Black woman’s hair. The experience delivers a powerful statement that urges society to stop policing Black hair.
The multiday cultural activation, Don’t Touch My Hair, runs from Oct. 11 through Oct. 13 and features live performances, spoken word, a DJ, panel discussions with Misa Hylton and Mikki Taylor, a close-out Grit & Glam Brunch, and more.
“In the experience, there is a wonderful hair salon, a gallery with portraits and film that celebrates the evolution of Black hair and its historical reference,” says Morris.
The Don’t Touch My Hair exhibit will be in Harriet Tubman Square in Newark, New Jersey, until Nov. 15th. Then, it will head to Miami Art Week from Dec. 4th through 8th at the Red Dot Art Fair in the Wynwood area of Miami.
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