The Black Hair Experience: Pop-Up Exhibit Dedicated to Black Hair

PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY, MD — When Alisha Brooks and Elizabeth Davis first started navigating the corporate world as college interns, they quickly learned their natural hair was not widely represented in the workplace.

Brooks said it was difficult for the two of them to figure out where they fit during the internship they shared at Boeing in 2007. She said it was a challenge navigating in a society that discriminated against their thick, natural hair.

The Kansas City, Missouri, native said she felt like she needed to change her hairstyle for job interviews to be taken seriously and not deemed unprofessional.

“We’ve both been in situations where we were like, ‘Okay, we got this interview, do we need to straighten our hair in order to move forward?’" Brooks said. "We don't want to show up to our interview with our twist out or our hair out.”

It wasn’t until years later that Brooks and Davis met at a conference and found a way to broadcast their experiences as Black women working in the corporate world with natural hair.

“Liz has shared that she wanted to do a passion photography project where she was going to travel and document stories of black women and their hair through her photography.” Brooks said, “And I'm like, well, wouldn't it be great to turn our experiences into an interactive exhibit? Because I'm all about like visuals and color and interactive spaces. So we kind of put our heads together. And that's kind of how The Black Hair Experience was born.”

The Black Hair Experience

Created and curated by Brooks and Davis, The Black Hair Experience is a pop-up art exhibit celebrating the hair and culture of Black people after years of discrimination and minimal representation.

In creating The Black Hair Experience, the longtime friends took different aspects of their hair experiences and cultivated them into art pieces to share with the world.

Similarly to a selfie museum, The Black Hair Experience has over 20 backdrops for visitors to take pictures with, capturing the essence of natural hair. With words of affirmation and photos of influential Black women with their hair experiences, the exhibit walks its visitors through everything pertaining to Black hair.

Davis, a Cleveland Heights, Ohio, native, said the exhibit is meant to send a message of self-love and celebrate Black beauty.

“The Black Hair Experience is a celebration, this is joy in the form of nostalgia and love.” Davis said, “The photo sharing part of the exhibit is the empowerment element. We have worked to create installations that are meant to be shared, and we wanted to create a space where Black women felt seen.”

The exhibit features a kitchen with hot combs used to straighten hair, a beauty salon set up and a magazine wall with prints from Essence, EBONY, Hype Hair and other popular Black hair magazines.

Creating a safe space that celebrates Black hair was very important to Brooks and Davis as they realized they didn’t have those spaces when they were growing up. Now that they are mothers, they would like their children to grow up in an environment where their hair is embraced rather than discriminated against, they said.

“We realized that there really hadn't been something like this that was created to celebrate our experiences.” Brooks said, “Regardless of how you wear your hair, or whether you're relaxed, natural, locs, bald, there wasn't really a space where we felt like you could come .... an installation where you could look at something and be like, ‘Oh, this was made for me.’”

With the goal of making a safe space for Black hair in mind, Brooks and Davis opened their first ever pop-up exhibit last November in Atlanta. After the coronavirus pandemic and police brutality protests of 2020, Brooks and Davis wanted to create a space that would give the Black community joy.

“We felt like our community really needed some positivity, some joy, some celebration, because it had been such a heavy year.” Brooks said, “So of course, with us sitting down and thinking about how can we do this in a way that we will still keep people safe, but we can create something for people to come out and get a piece of this joy.”

Launching During The Pandemic

Opening a new business during a global pandemic was enough of a challenge, but Brooks said finding a location was the hardest part. The co-founders struggled to find a location with a short-term lease, as their original goal was to open for only 30 days. But, they soon found the community’s response to The Black Hair Experience would be larger than expected.

The wide support of The Black Hair Experience led to Brooks and Davis extending the 30 day opening to a permanent opening. Although the pandemic posed a threat of how guests would be able to attend the exhibit, Brooks came up with a strategic plan to keep guests and workers safe through it all.

Throughout the pandemic, The Black Hair Experience operated at 10 percent capacity with social distancing, mandated mask wearing, hand sanitation stations and air decontamination systems in place.

The coronavirus restrictions limited the amount of people who could enter the exhibit at once, but it did little to slow the expansion of The Black Hair Experience as they begin to open new locations across the country.

Find The Black Hair Experience Near You

The Black Hair Experience currently has two locations, Atlanta and National Harbor, Maryland, but five more locations are set to open as soon as this fall.

The newest location will open this fall in Dallas, with exhibits in New York City, Houston, Los Angeles and Austin, Texas, to follow.

“We hope to take The Black Hair Experience everywhere, because we want everybody to be able to experience it. Now that rollout has to happen over time. But yeah, like we're in it for the long haul,” Brooks said.

What makes each exhibit location unique is that they have different coverages of Black hair experiences. Some of the art featured in the National Harbor location is not at the Atlanta location, and the newer exhibits will include art not included at either of the older locations.

Brooks mentioned one of their new The Black Hair Experience locations will introduce a barbershop station to spotlight the discrimination Black men also experience because of their hair.

Shop At The Pop-Up Shop: Retail Store

Along with the pop-up exhibit, The Black Hair Experience offers a retail program where it sells products from businesses owned by Black women.

“We have our retail program where we're trying to bring in small, Black woman-owned businesses into our space and give them an opportunity to get their products in front of our customers," Brooks said.

The retail store offers The Black Hair Experience merchandise, earrings, hair clips, jewelry, hair scarves, skin care brands, accessories, candles and more.

The retail store also includes products from Brooks’ and Davis’ individual small businesses. Outside of managing The Black Hair Experience, both founders have their own skin and body care businesses: Nani Bodycare and Summa Skin, respectively.

Brooks said the purpose of the retail space is to grant exposure to Black-owned businesses and to give visitors an opportunity to support them. The store is open to all, even people who do not visit the exhibit. And, the products are available online.

What’s Next For The Black Hair Experience

The Black Hair Experience has seen a lot of success in its first eight months. Now, its founders plan to use lessons learned to move ahead.

Davis said, “Over the past year we have faced many challenges and having a solid mission and understanding the importance of teamwork and perseverance has guided us through this.”

Going forward, The Black Hair Experience plans to expand to its new locations as well as find ways to give back to the community that has supported them. Brooks said their top goals are partnering with community based organizations, creating a scholarship for college students and growing retail space to give Black businesses a place to sell their products.

The Black Hair Experience also plans to start a youth community outreach program that will have workshops for children to learn to love and embrace their hair.

Now Open at the National Harbor

Located at 151 St. George Blvd Oxon Hill, Maryland, the exhibit is open from Thursday to Sunday each week. Its hours of business are from 3 to 8 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays and from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.

General admission tickets cost $32 and VIP admission tickets — which come with a swag bag — are $52. Those interested in purchasing tickets for The Black Hair Experience can visit their website.