Interview: Shani Crowe

The Creative Muscle

Whether coiffed or disheveled, sleek or tousled, thick or thin, hair tells a story about our personality, our history, our demeanor, even our beliefs. Shani Crowe is an interdisciplinary artist whose work centers on cultural coiffure, adornment and beauty ritual as they relate to the diasporic African, and how these practices function as tools to foster connectivity. She is most known for creating intricate corn-rowed hairstyles, then capturing them as large photographic portraits. Her work was selected to represent the US in the Venice Architecture Biennale, and has been featured Saturday Night Live in collaboration with Solange Knowles. This week she sits down live in studio with the Creative Muscle hosts to talk about hair as a form of both self-care and resistance, how to incorporate the cycles of nature and life into your attitude towards art, the value of patience, getting out of your head (so to speak ;)), and making a plan while also leaving space for things to happen organically. Take a listen!