Never, as in recent months, has women’s hair become a symbol of struggle and protest. Just think aboutIran, where after the death of Mahsa Amini (unfortunately, many other deaths followed), many women cut their hair, and the slogan “Woman, life, freedom” sounded. Cutting hair is actually a symbolic act and a sign of mourning for the Islamic religion. But not only that, because I hair since time immemorial, they have contained a strong symbolic meaning: they are energy, fertility, beauty and sexuality. And the hair itself is in the center of the work Binta Diau, an Italo-Senegalese artist who made hair an instrument of struggle and defense. Born in 1995 in Milan to Senegalese parents, Binta grew up in the city of Milan and completed her studies at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts and then in France, at ÉSAD in Grenoble. His research is part of a philosophical reflection on the social phenomena that define our modern world, such as migration, the concept of belonging, or the question of belonging. type – and inclines through the body and spatiality.

But what does it mean to be a woman and an artist in Italy, and above all, what does it mean to be a second generation artist? “Being a woman, black and an artist today is a form of freedom and responsibility for me,” says Binta. “I feel responsible to all the women who preceded me and who one day will look to me as a reference point. The emergence of the second generation has always played an important role. I think this is one of the reasons that led me to direct part of my research towards problems of identity and membership”. Aware of the difficulties of being a black woman and an artist in a highly Europeanized society and country, Italy, where the second generation is still trying to establish itself, Binta rejects any exotic approach and ethnic complacency. Despite her young age, this artist has important exhibitions in Italy and beyond abroad, and she has established herself as one of the artists under 30 the most promising on the Italian scene. “The art world has always been an exclusive, not an all-inclusive world. The elite have always monopolized visibility, leaving less room for women to express themselves, much less black women. Today, I can finally say that many women like me are struggling to find a place in this context and are completely successful. We live in a world stratified by multiplicity, where boundaries do not exist except in the minds of those who think they live according to individualistic logic.” And just look at his works to realize their power, like those presented in a solo exhibition. La plage noire”, placed in the space of the Prometeo Ida Pisani gallery a few months ago, or in “Paysages” these days in Grenoble, in Magasin CNAC: through the figure of the mangrove, its double life form, suspended between earth, water and air, the artist reflects on the state of man, on his rootedness, but in motion. Mangroves made by Binta of synthetic hair float easily in low pools of stagnant water. The hair thus becomes the guardians of the complex symbolism.

“Hair has always fascinated me. They have always been a part of my life as a black woman. Hair is the part of the body through which I can express, hide my fears and feel who I want and how I want. Hair is freedom. and hope, like labyrinths woven into the skin of women ancestors who, in order to escape from the plantations, created a mysterious language with which they could communicate and act with each other,” says Binta. “The idea of ​​working with hair was born at the stage of my journey. art in which I tried to question my identity in relation to the complexities of the world around me. In Don’t, hair was an element through which I could reflect on issues of power, violence against non-white bodies, and the aesthetic canons imposed by a Eurocentric vision.” A vision that we hope will soon be overcome, also through art.