These images tell a story of loss and rootlessness, of anger and passion, of love and gratitude. These are images of discarded hair in the streets, documented exactly as it was found, with no manipulation of the hair either physically on the ground or afterwards in camera or digitally. This is hair at the end of its life cycle, freed from the human head and going its own way, as a material between life and death.
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Discarded hair exists below the radar – we do not see it or wish to see it. Here, hair plays out its own dramas and life stories. Following these stories is an exercise in empathy, in crossing difficult boundaries, and in looking and relating, with feeling. 
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Dr Sarah Cheang

Senior Tutor on the History of Design programme at the RCA. Her research interests centre on transnational fashion, material culture and the body. She has a special interest in the role of Chinese material culture within histories of Western fashionable dress and domestic interiors, a subject on which she has published widely and lectures frequently.  Her co-edited collection, Hair: Styling, Culture and Fashion (2008), and continued research and publishing on hair, fashion and identity have also led to contributions to magazines, exhibition catalogues, festivals, radio and television.  
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