Central Saint Martins art student Favour Jonathan is documenting her hairstyles in the most unconventional way – with the use of passport photographs. Favour has been taking photographs of her new hairdos at a photo booth over the past few months, and has collated them in an ongoing series titled A Statement of Pride.
“We’re living in a time when black people are starting to see the beauty in our own hair; you get to a certain age and you ask yourself: ‘why am I buying chemicals to damage my own hair?’ There are so many natural hairstyles out there and it’s important to teach our daughters and our sons that they are beautiful,” Favour states in an interview with Another. From this statement it is clear that this series highlights the importance of celebrating black hair, but it also goes beyond this by indirectly commenting on ideas about borders and use of the photograph as a form of identification.
For Favour the use of a passport photograph to document her hairstyles is about celebrating her Nigerian heritage and being able to reflect back on her personal growth. While this is true, I see A Statement of Pride as bringing a new definition to the formality of the passport photograph. Her use of a type of formal identification, and presenting a more personalised, meaningful association with it, can arguably be seen as a way to speak back to the increased political conservatism and migratory policies that constantly seek to identify, monitor and create barriers around those who are not of European heritage. As a young African women now living in London, the passport photographs also speaks to themes related to home and remembrance; the idea of containing her Nigerian identity in a medium that can easily be kept with her at all times.
