Hairline Loop
Nine Gallery, Portland, Oregon, 1997
The hair in this work is my own, collected from around my home (in my comb, brush, shower, on the floor, etc.) over the course of six months in 1997. The hair has been glued end to end onto half inch wide strips of paper, so as to create a continuous line on a ribbon 2,000 feet long. The line is installed on nails measuring 62 inches apart vertically, that sum equaling my height.
People can respond to hair so differently according to its context. It is desirable and beautiful when it is on your head; then quite repulsive when found in your food. Like skin it is regenerative; we lose some everyday and still we grow back more.
In this installation, hair is a tracking device for the passage of time, evidence of the body's growth and its mortality. It is a timeline, with a human scale structure, that loops onto itself as an image of the repetition and constancy we experience from day to day.
Photos: Aaron Johanson
