Inter-twining (Tra-me)

Decontextualized portraits of women from southern Angola, which stand out in the creativity of their hairstyles. Yet, even in this aesthetic expression, they conform to the social, cultural and spiritual conditioning of the dominant patriarchal culture.

Decontextualized portraits, African women from remote tribes in southern Angola, captured from behind, represent an intentional choice. This approach aims to depict the harsh reality of women living under dominant patriarchal tribal cultures that subjugate them, forcing them to endure injustice, violence, and abuse, or to wage daily battles to defend their fundamental rights.

The women to whom I seek to give a voice through my photography exist in a state of marginalization and exclusion that stifles or extinguishes any yearning for freedom.

These women appear to seek emancipation through creativity, expressed primarily in their clothing and hairstyles. The latter, in particular, are veritable sculptures, braided or horn-shaped forms molded from mud, herbs, fat, and cow dung, and embellished with seashells and hundreds of multicolored beads and buttons. Yet, even in this aesthetic expression, they conform to social, cultural, and spiritual constraints that dictate and require specific symbolic representations.

The spiritual dimension is rooted in animism, a religion that transmits its beliefs through symbols, guided by the forms and conventions of ancestral tribal rites. As hair is the part of the individual that reaches furthest toward the sky, it is believed that communication with the gods and ancestral spirits flows through it to reach the soul, hence the great importance placed on hairstyles.

Social and cultural implications are evident in a variety of distinct characteristics: a specific hairstyle may denote ethnic affiliation or, within a single social group, indicate a woman's age, her transition to adulthood (marked by menarche), or a particular marital and social status.