Laetitia Ky

Laetitia Ky (born 1996, Abidjan) is a feminist artist from Ivory Coast, who creates sculptures from her hair.

Laetitia Ky
Born1996
Abidjan
NationalityIvorian
Alma materInstitut national polytechnique Félix Houphouët-Boigny
StyleSculpture

Biography

Ky was born in 1996[1] and grew up in Abidjan; her parent divorced when she was young.[2] She has a degree in Business Administration from Institut national polytechnique Félix Houphouët-Boigny in Yamoussoukro. After graduating, she realised she wanted to work in art and design.[2] She began a new career in fashion design, but was soon inspired to change direction by looking at archival photographs of African women's hairstyles.[2] She began creating these new fusions of hair art and sculpture in 2016.[3]

Ky's hallmark style is creating sculptures from wire, thread and her dreadlocks (lengthened with weaves into her natural hair).[4] She calls this style the Ky Concept.[4] These styles express her creativity and increasingly, her politics.[5] Each sculpture takes between twenty minutes and six hours to create.[6] The first iteration of her sculptural hair art involved wrapping braids in African wax print cloth; in 2017 she hosted her first "Ky Braids" workshop to teach the art-form to others.[7]

A music collaboration followed with Di'Ja, whose hair she covered in printed wax cloth inspired by the hair of Himba women.[8]
Ky launched her fashion brand in 2018.[9] Named Kystroy, it aims to be inclusive, using body positive language to describe clothing sizes for example.[10]

#MeToo and Activism

Over time Ky's sculptures have become more political and in 2017 she used her platform on social media to raise awareness.[2] That piece showed a man lifting up a woman's skirt, sculpted from her braids.[2] Also in 2017 she produced a piece that created bulging muscles over her slim arm - this was to raise awareness about bullying, especially the damage it can do in childhood, which Ky experienced.[11]

In 2019, Ky created a new piece which showed a uterus with each Fallopian tube 'flipping the bird' at the viewer.[12] This was in protest at the USA's anti-abortion laws.[12]

Ky is seen by many to be an ambassador for natural hair for African women.[4]

Awards

In 2018 she was selected as one of the top twenty young people for On the Rise Côte d'Ivoire a programme run by L’Association des Conseils en Lobbying et Affaires Publiques de Côte d'Ivoire (ACLAP-CI).[13] In same year she was voted one of the Prix Jeunesse Francophone 3535's thirty-five influential young people in the French-speaking world.[14] The following year she was selected by Paper magazine as one of the top '100 People Taking Over 2019'.[15] At the end of that year, she was awarded a contract as a result of the Elite Model competition social media category, in partnership with TikTok.[16]

References
  1. "Meet The Digital Creator Winners Of Elite Model Look 2019". Elite Model Look. Retrieved 2020-04-02.
  2. Laetitia Ky's strong hair and its powerful message: https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/laetitia-ky-dazed-beauty/index.html
  3. "Could you make art out of your hair?". BBC News. Retrieved 2020-02-13.
  4. "Meet Laetitia Ky, the unconventional Ivorian artist taking hair sculpting to a different level". Face2Face Africa. 2019-08-13. Retrieved 2020-02-13.
  5. "This Ivorian Artist Can Sculpt Her Hair Into Anything". Bored Panda. Retrieved 2020-02-13.
  6. "Laetitia Ky – INFRINGE". Retrieved 2020-02-13.
  7. "VIDEO. Cette Ivoirienne sculpte ses cheveux au nom du féminisme". www.20minutes.fr (in French). Retrieved 2020-02-13.
  8. "Laetitia KY And Di'Ja Collaborate, In This Colourful Photo Series About ANKARA INSPIRED Hair Braids". Naijalife Magazine. 2017-06-22. Retrieved 2020-02-13.
  9. "Laetitia Ky, la jeune artiste Ivoirienne fait son grand retour". www.elle.ci (in Polish). Retrieved 2020-02-13.
  10. "Laetitia KY's whimsical hair sculptures are powerful political expressions". Dazed. 2019-02-17. Retrieved 2020-02-13.
  11. "Meet Laetitia Ky: The Picasso of ponytails". Grazia Middle East. Retrieved 2020-02-13.
  12. "The Picasso of Ponytails? Meet Laetitia Ky, an Ivory Coast-Based Artist Who Makes Unbelievably Inventive Sculptures With Her Hair". artnet News. 2019-09-06. Retrieved 2020-02-13.
  13. "On the rise 2018". Association des Conseils en Lobbying et Affaires Publiques de Côte d’ Ivoire (ACLAP-CI) (in French). Retrieved 2020-02-13.
  14. "Africa 35.35 | The African Youth of the Year Awards | Les Awards de la Jeune Personnalité Africaine de l'Année". africa3535.com. Retrieved 2020-03-16.
  15. "Kimberley Margarita". PAPER. 2019-01-29. Retrieved 2020-02-13.
  16. Figaro, Madame (2019-11-19). "Et les gagnants du concours Elite Model Look 2019 sont..." Madame Figaro. Retrieved 2020-02-13.
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