Yesterday, April 20, 2011 apparently. Anh-Thuy Nguyen, who is currently enrolled in the Master of Fine Arts Program at SMU, invited any and all people to her art performance in which each participant cut off a small part of her hair in front of a video camera. After about 6 hours, broken up into three segments throughout the day, the performance culminated with the final participant completely shaving Anh-Thuy's head.
Anh-Thuy's concentration in her arts program is predominantly working with visual arts, specifically photography and video. All participants were required to grant her a release/licence to use their image from the performance so, presumably, she will be making a digital video art project from the recorded footage.
Why would someone shave their head as an art project and why have strangers cut off all your hair little by little before actually shaving your head? In 1965, Yoko Ono performed the "Cut Piece" in Tokyo where participants came up on stage and cut off her clothing piece by piece. At the time, she suggested that this performance was an outward communication of her internal suffering and a commentary on personal identity.
On April 10th of this year singer Chrisette Michelle announced just before performing her hit entitled "Fragile" off the Epiphany album that she had shaved her head in direct defiance to the entertainment industry's practice of dictating how performers should look and to send a positive message to young girls about what is considered beautiful in today's popular culture.
Anh-Thuy's art performance yesterday was unquestionably about self-identity. Human beings, especially females, are very attached to the hair on their heads and spend billions of dollars a year to maintain it, style it and change it to conform to the current social norms of the culture in which they live. By having friends and strangers cut off Anh-Thuy's hair lock by lock and bit by bit, she is forcing each participant to examine their own identity and feelings about hair and, in her own words, "delve deeply into the maelstrom of conflicting emotions, feelings, and thoughts through the portrayal of strikingly strange yet hauntingly beautiful visual manifestations of gain and loss" (in this case the main loss was of Anh-Thuy's hair!).