Laetitia Ky
Laetitia Ky | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1997 Abidjan |
| Nationality | Ivorian |
| Alma mater | Institut national polytechnique Félix Houphouët-Boigny |
| Style | Sculpture |
Laetitia Ky (born 1997, Abidjan) is a feminist artist from Ivory Coast, who creates sculptures from her hair.
Biography
Ky was born in 1997 and grew up in Abidjan; her parent divorced when she was young.[1] She has a degree in Business Administration from Institut national polytechnique Félix Houphouët-Boigny in Yamoussoukro. After graduating realised she wanted to work in art and design.[1] She began her career change with fashion design, but was soon inspired to change direction by looking at archival photographs of African women's hairstyles.[1] She began creating these new fusions of hair skill in 2016.[2]
Ky's hallmark style is creating sculptures from wire, thread and her dreadlocks (lengthened with weaves into her natural hair).[3] She calls this style the Ky Concept.[3] These styles express her creativity and increasingly, her politics.[4] Each sculpture takes between twenty minutes and six hours to create.[5] In 2017 she hosted her first "Ky Braids" workshop to teach the art-form to others.[6] Her first music collaboration followed with Di'Ja, whose hair she covered in printed cloth inspired by the hair of Himba women.[7]
Ky launched her fashion brand in 2018.[8] Named Kystroy, it aims to be inclusive, using body positive language to describe clothing sizes for example.[9]
#MeToo and Activism
Over time Ky's sculptures have become more political and in 2017 she used her platform on social media to raise awareness.[1] That piece showed a man lifting up a woman's skirt, sculpted from her braids.[1] Also in 2017 she produced a piece that created bulging muscles over her slim arm - this was to raise awareness about bullying, especially the damage it can do in childhood, which Ky experienced.[10]
In 2019, Ky created a new piece which showed a uterus with each Fallopian tube 'flipping the bird' at the viewer.[11] This was in protest at the USA's anti-abortion laws.[11]
Ky is seen by many to be an ambassador for natural hair for African women.[3]
Awards
In 2018 she was selected as one of the top twenty young people for On the Rise Côte d'Ivoire a programme run by L’Association des Conseils en Lobbying et Affaires Publiques de Côte d’Ivoire (ACLAP-CI).[12] In same year she was voted one of the Prix Jeunesse Francophone 3535's thirty-five influential young people in the French-speaking world.[13] The following year she was selected by Paper magazine as one of the top '100 People Taking Over 2019'.[14] At the end of that year, she was awarded a contract as a result of the Elite Model competition social media category, in partnership with Tik Tok.[15]
References
- ^ a b c d e Laetitia Ky's strong hair and its powerful message: https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/laetitia-ky-dazed-beauty/index.html
- ^ "Could you make art out of your hair?". BBC News. Retrieved 2020-02-13.
- ^ a b c "Meet Laetitia Ky, the unconventional Ivorian artist taking hair sculpting to a different level". Face2Face Africa. 2019-08-13. Retrieved 2020-02-13.
- ^ "This Ivorian Artist Can Sculpt Her Hair Into Anything". Bored Panda. Retrieved 2020-02-13.
- ^ "Laetitia Ky – INFRINGE". Retrieved 2020-02-13.
- ^ "VIDEO. Cette Ivoirienne sculpte ses cheveux au nom du féminisme". www.20minutes.fr (in French). Retrieved 2020-02-13.
- ^ "Laetitia KY And Di'Ja Collaborate, In This Colourful Photo Series About ANKARA INSPIRED Hair Braids". Naijalife Magazine. 2017-06-22. Retrieved 2020-02-13.
- ^ "Laetitia Ky, la jeune artiste Ivoirienne fait son grand retour". www.elle.ci (in Polish). Retrieved 2020-02-13.
- ^ "Laetitia KY's whimsical hair sculptures are powerful political expressions". Dazed. 2019-02-17. Retrieved 2020-02-13.
- ^ "Meet Laetitia Ky: The Picasso of ponytails". Grazia Middle East. Retrieved 2020-02-13.
- ^ a b "The Picasso of Ponytails? Meet Laetitia Ky, an Ivory Coast-Based Artist Who Makes Unbelievably Inventive Sculptures With Her Hair". artnet News. 2019-09-06. Retrieved 2020-02-13.
- ^ "On the rise 2018". Association des Conseils en Lobbying et Affaires Publiques de Côte d’ Ivoire (ACLAP-CI) (in French). Retrieved 2020-02-13.
- ^ "Prix Jeunesse Francophone 3535". www.francophonie3535.com. Retrieved 2020-02-13.
- ^ "Kimberley Margarita". PAPER. 2019-01-29. Retrieved 2020-02-13.
- ^ Figaro, Madame (2019-11-19). "Et les gagnants du concours Elite Model Look 2019 sont..." Madame Figaro. Retrieved 2020-02-13.