Day of Record, Nails, Weaves and Naturals: Black British Hairstyle and Nail Art

'The Day of Record', 7th May 2001, invited black people to the V&A to have their hairstyles and nail art photographed. White visitors with black inspired styles were also encouraged to participate.

1,200 people attended 'The Day of Record', 98% were black. Images of many of the attendees were added to the V&A's photographic collection and a dedicated website was created as a permanent and rare record of contemporary black British hairstyle and nail-art. In order to place the contemporary styles being documented on the day in a broader context, the historical, political and aesthetic complexities of black hair and nail art were discussed in a series of talks held throughout the day.

Additionally a display of 36 photographs of hairstyles across the African diaspora ran prior to and beyond 7th May. This was a radical museological format to address, in an accessible way, the contentious issue of black beauty, which dates back to the period of the British slave trade. This was the first event on this subject held at a British national museum.

This research led me to curate the oral history and material culture based exhibition 'Tools of the Trade: Black British Hairdressing' (2001), which focused on black hairdressers and barbers from 1947-2001.

The positive impact of the event on the attendees, the collaboration between the Archives and Museum of Black Heritage project and the V&A, and their respective black and white curators informed my paper 'SW7 to SW9: A Case Study of Exhibitions on Black Culture' presented at the V&A conference 'Connections and Disconnections: Museums, Cultural Heritage and Diverse Communities' (2002). This was developed into the chapter 'Picture This: The Black Curator' published in 'The Politics of Heritage, the Legacies of Race' (Routledge 2005)

• http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/contemp...
• http://www.routledge.com/books/The-Polit...
• http://www.transnational.org.uk/projects...