Artist and photographer · Côte d’Ivoire
Laetitia Ky
Laetitia Ky (born 1996) is an Ivorian artist from Abidjan who sculpts her own hair, with wool, wire and thread, into shapes — arms, figures, animals, words — and photographs the results. Her images, shared widely online, address womanhood, Black beauty and social justice. She took part in the Côte d'Ivoire pavilion at the 2022 Venice Biennale.
Updated 2 min read
Laetitia Ky was born in 1996 in Abidjan. She has said that the work began as a way of reconnecting with her African heritage. Using her own hair together with wool, wire and thread, she shapes it into forms that comment on the world: a map of Africa, a hand holding a guitar, raised fists, words and slogans.
How the work is made
Each piece is a sculpture first and a photograph second. The hair is built up on wire and thread until it holds a shape, and the result lives only for the length of a photo shoot. What survives is the image: Ky usually stands against a plain background and looks straight at the camera, so that the sculpture and the pose carry the meaning. The format is simple and was made for the screen, which is why it spread so quickly on social media.
What she says with it
The sculptures take up issues that are rarely discussed in public in many countries, among them sexual harassment, reproductive rights and racial discrimination, and they celebrate natural Black hair as a medium in its own right. Humour and theatricality keep the pictures from being only protest.
Venice and the book
In 2022 she was one of the artists in the national pavilion of Côte d'Ivoire at the Venice Biennale. That year she also published Love and Justice, a first book that combines essays with photographs of her sculptures (Kirkus lists its release date as 5 April 2022). Her work has since been shown in group and solo exhibitions in Europe and Asia.
Where to look
The sculptures exist mainly as photographs, so the prints and the book are the work itself. Her gallery, LIS10, which has spaces in Arezzo and Paris, staged Empow'Hair, which ran until January 2023, and the exhibition L'ambigua avventura was shown at Casa Masaccio in Italy. See our list of African photographers.
