Babadook is a project to help me grieve the loss of my hair. Self-consciousness always lurks around the corner, like the Babadook in Jennifer Kent's 2014 horror film of the same name. It habitually informs our actions: the way I automatically tussle my hair to give it volume when around others, the way I avoid crouching below people as to not expose the top of my head. Such instinctual responses corrodes at our self valuation.
The curls and tangled bits that fall out in the shower and on the couch, I collect, then felt together into a small mass. As I lose my hair, it grows. As I lose my friend, I make a new one. Through externalization, I am able to accept what is changing. Through the meditative practice of felting, I am able to find peace.
The curls and tangled bits that fall out in the shower and on the couch, I collect, then felt together into a small mass. As I lose my hair, it grows. As I lose my friend, I make a new one. Through externalization, I am able to accept what is changing. Through the meditative practice of felting, I am able to find peace.
Losing my hair
feels like growing distant
from a lover
whose relationship
defined me.
feels like growing distant
from a lover
whose relationship
defined me.