Black Beauty School has an opportunity to go to Germany in 2024, so we are raising funds to support ourselves abroad. BBS is an educational experience that fuses art, theater, and the politics of Blackness.
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Just wanted to give ya’ll a lil sneak peek of the new characters I am developing for the @blaxkbeautyschool interactive exhibit.
Each character will have a fictive story and lifeline inspired and created from all my experiences as a Black Hairstylist.
Their story will be digital and accessed by each individual attendee to use in tandem with the physical exhibit and conversation.
I am super excited about creating each character whose backstory will also align with the different intersections & marginalizations we find ourselves in as Black humans.
Black Beauty School is a fusion of art, theater, and the politics of Blackness, making it a powerful work that’s needed to shift the care and lack of intention shown to Black communities across the diaspora. Our goal is to raise funds to support ourselves while taking Black Beauty School abroad.
Our power is in reconnecting, understanding and redefining our bodies outside of the yt gaze. The understanding of body and self can lead to success in many fields for Black folx but we must get back to the basics, which was stolen the moment we became enslaved persons worldwide. This is what BBS is all about. Restoring power, peace, and confidence to the Black body.
Its purpose is to engage an intense public dialogue around Black embodiment while also discussing the truths of how anti-Blackness continues to grow worldwide. It is meant to be a beautifully uncomfortable reminder of the struggle to redefine Black beauty, and more specifically, Black hair outside of the western gaze. It is meant to empower Black communities across the diaspora, to look up and at one another with fresh eyes, and remember their inherent power, while simultaneously reminding non-Black persons of their failure to understand, protect, love, and see their own humxnity reflected in Black beauty.
The U.S. is not at all what it claims to be. It refuses to take accountability for their transatlantic slave trade crimes and the generational effects it has forced into our Black communities. As autistic and trans individuals, who are descendants of Enslaved persons, our daily lives are in constant danger. Everyday we watch our people die at the hands of government officials and white supremacists. Capitalism exploits our traumas while appropriating our essence. Extremist groups and school shootings continue to rise. Housing is becoming exclusively for the rich. Many states are enacting anti-lgbtqia+ laws and favoring racial segregation, gender inequality, and banning curricula depicting accurate Black history. We toured BBS across the country in 2021 and witnessed how deeply america refuses to relinquish its white supremacy, making its claims of diversity, unity, change, and the american dream an unobtainable lie.
We are Kiing & Siir and we designed BBS to create deeper healing and education across the Black diaspora for those who recognize that the path to Black power and Black freedom must begin with Black embodiment.
Kiing is a multidisciplinary artist who holds a MFA in theatre from the University of California, Irvine and is a licensed cosmetologist, and their spouse Siir Cole holds a Masters of Divinity from Vanderbilt University. You can learn more about us at bespokecurry.com
After experiencing a year of horrible housing discrimination, theft, and harm in Portland, Oregon, and abandonment from APL Model management in Los Angeles, we were forced into homelessness in March 2023.
We have been living in Airbnb's while trying to relaunch BBS, but the stress of it all has taken a toll on our mental health and abilities to regulate and work has been immense. We have an opportunity to take BBS to Germany in 2024, so we are raising funds to support ourselves abroad and search for new opportunities and community.
You can learn more about BBS at https://www.bespokecurry.com/black-beauty-school
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Just wanted to give ya’ll a lil sneak peek of the new characters I am developing for the @blaxkbeautyschool interactive exhibit.
Each character will have a fictive story and lifeline inspired and created from all my experiences as a Black Hairstylist.
Their story will be digital and accessed by each individual attendee to use in tandem with the physical exhibit and conversation.
I am super excited about creating each character whose backstory will also align with the different intersections & marginalizations we find ourselves in as Black humans.
Sign in with your Facebook account or email.
Sep 04