My hair falls out
Tegan Parrish
I am staring at seven large portraits. The frames are placed adjacently along three walls. They push back against the idea of individuality and revel in solidarity. In sisterhood. They mirror female Kurdish fighters preparing for battle. I feel a presence in this moment. A large, ominous, confining shadow ready to consume me. The photographs distort my understanding of space. The room is lonely, but the light from the frames echoes on the floor illuminating my way to this work. I am pulled towards it. The words fall out.
Hair
Black and white
Tangling pulling commanding
In turn we lose
Rebel
What does this mean?
What are they trying to tell me?
Hair
Braided
Controlled
Confined beauty
She’s observed shrewdly
Controlled, Braided
Though in pain
She’s not
Vain
Hoda Afshar’s photographic collection, In Turn (2023), is not solely a representation of feminine beauty and expectations but also a silent battleground for all women. A universal experience wrapped in cultural and political symbolism of hair that defies the legacy of control—cutting, covering, taming, binding. These photographed subjects are not just held by the lens of the camera, but age-old systems that determine womanhood in terms of composure, obedience and concealment. The very act of braiding hair—wrapping, twisting, coiling—reveals echoes of the male-dominant structures intended on moulding their self-expression and identities without consent.
In this space, hair is paradoxical. Yes, it is profoundly personal and ultimately biologically female in nature. So, why are these women forced to conceal it? Forced to confine their very identity? Whether through law, societal demand or domestic command, Afshar’s positional framing, both literally and within her subjects, rejects this symbol of imprisonment and rather unmasks the systems intent on controlling it.
These plaits, while precise and controlled, uphold restriction. A traditional association with virtue and command ensures Afshar’s work to be grounds for a collective and united grievance. Whether it be Virginia’s locked door, or Afshar’s braided hair, they all hold secrets: creativity subdued, autonomy forgotten and voices lost in the silence.
And so, the woman is unable to express herself. Is there the possibility to resist? Does it all end in despair?
The spark of rebellion is exposed even in the neatest of settings—the few strands out of place. Viewers are witnesses to the struggle, the quiet feelings. Their isolation is not overshadowed by their agency. Afshar invites us to observe the muted resistance in the stillness. I find myself pulled by the space—not just its aesthetics, but the emotional weight that it holds. The shadows hold history. It is the male dominated views carved into every expectation of what a woman should be. This hair is now the rope, it is more so the thread intended to unravel it.
*
Black and white
I am perched on the floor of a xxxxx room.
There are no corners. No place to rest from the ceiling that bleeds into the floor.
Only the pounding xxxxx of my own soul.
There’s a movement.
xxxxxx.
Out of place. The flap of xxxxx wings.
Brushing the air with intent xxxx.
No thought of escape. xx xxxxx, xxx xxx.
It flutters by a crevice in the wall. xxxxx.
I follow but the walls do not move.
I speak to it. I ask: xxxx.
It doesn’t speak back.
In its eyes, too human-like eyes,
too understanding—xxxxxx—
it knows the wall is not the end.
It understands that I am waiting for someone … xxxx xx.
xxx the air tastes like chalk.
My fingertips are greying.
I draw a door on the wall and imagine xx xxxxxxx.
The dove watches.
The room grows darker. xx,x xxxxx.
But the speck of white remains.
x xxxx it carries the memories on its back. On its wings as it flies.
It says: ‘xxx xxxx xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx’.
And so, I stay.
I am released from the pain.
Redacted footnotes:
White sound
< echoes white fear
(At least not yet) Crack
Help Please find me. But an opening.
It’s black
I know …
---------You were never the prisoner---------
There is an interesting interplay of light and shadow in Afshar’s work. The black and white is a haunting representation of the female experience. They aren’t fully imprisoned, yet they are not entirely free either. The dove plays an integral role as a traditional symbol of peace, hope and purity. But here, it can also be viewed as a figure of yearning. In this expansive, yet sparse landscape, Afshar’s subjects remain contained and observed, but not unheard.
There is a physical and psychic isolation here. A feeling of being watched and forgotten. Voiceless and decorative. Visible and delicate. The interplay of black and white reflects the binary struggle imposed on women: pure or whore, covered or exposed, obedient or be punished. Here, there is no grey.
In this instance, the dove is necessary. The white of its feathers accentuates the darkness of their clothes, even the weight of their gaze. It sparks movement and hope. While the subjects are still, the bird seeks flight. It seeks the freedom that still exists somewhere. These women are stuck in the room, but can picture the escape; unable to fly, but can see those who can.
The silencing of women’s voices permeates the work and its message. Like the women being forced to cover up and present as unreadable to the masses, so too are the parts of the story that remain missing and censored. Their words are withheld, and the rigidness of what is visible and what should remain hidden, is not only structural, but universal.
The resolution is not given. The woman cannot be freed by the dove, but it gives hope for a world afar. A radical gesture is not a means for escape, but the prospect of it. So yes, there is a binary struggle is evident, yet I can observe a collective action. They are not confined by the black and white world, but stare into the distance—like the dove—at a place where the colours blend.
*
Tangling pulling commanding
She holds her head firm. But she is on a leash.
She wants to step forward but the chain resists.
Somewhere a name is called, but not her own.
A voice cracks—
the leash tightens.
Tangled threads on skin marks the lasting memories.
She is trying. But she is lost.
And so, she closes her eyes.
Every pull wounds her spine.
Every wrench is a command.
She does not break. She is asked to bow.
She is posed
placed
composed
restrained
In the reflection are others. Leaning together in quiet support.
She cannot reach them.
But the others almost do.
Being told to stand still, one swats quietly.
Hair tucked tightly.
Head held firmly.
They do not whisper. They do not beg.
She stays.
But she does not belong.
Being tangled and pulled reveals what it means for women to be constantly controlled, and the expectation that they take it with grace. This hidden labour and its silent destruction.
A visible duality is evident here. A visual push and pull between these women. There is the external force of gaze, expectations, rules and domination. On the other side, I can observe an internal resilience and yearning for liberation. As a viewer being pulled between these opposing forces, I am obliged to coexist with the tension. I don’t know where to look—I can feel the weight of the frame.
They are intent on sharing the space. While appearing together, they are apart. In androcentric societies, the simple desire for solidarity and sisterhood is foiled by fear. I can feel that they want to reach for each other—I want to reach for them. As a comfort to overcome the cruelty of something nearby, but unable to hold.
From a distance, she is being held. Her hair is the leash. The classic ball and chain. Here, this symbol of imprisonment is not a cliché but a commentary. This photographic rendering is both very real and allegorical. In these scenes, it is intended and haunting. She is placed calmly, surrounded by beauty, and thus, forcing the observer to indulge in the discomfort it brings.
Fatigue. The most prominent aspect. There is no sense of fear, they do not scream. Yet, these women cannot be at peace. There is tiredness in their positions—the stillness of their bodies, the hair wrapped around them like shackles, and it condemns the atrocities that history has attempted to cover. Their silence is not surrender. It’s a form of survival. They are tangled in the strain: a woman should be, behave, be reserved. However, Afshar has a very interesting way of showing us what they actually are.
The idea of being close illuminates a radical thought that the presence of someone else is enough. Whether the same room, the same struggle, a shared weight. Through a lens, sisterhood is built—both quietly and resolutely—and ultimately, the braids become their freedom, as opposed to their chains.
*
In turn we lose
I want to say something.
I want to say something to her.
I want to say something to her, but—
she will not* turn.
*Cannot
She remains still.
She remains still, and I think—
does she hear me?
does she know I’m here,
waiting?
I speak her name.
I speak her name again.
I speak—
but it’s no longer her name.
I can see her eyes.
No—
I can see the veil.
No—
I can see the space where her face should be.
She is uncovered covered.
She is unrestrained restrained.
She is—
lost.
I want to watch.
I want to watch closely.
I want to—
but I am unsure.
I say:
‘I’m here for you.’
‘I see you.’
‘I reach for you.’
‘I—’
(echo)
(echo)
(…)
I look away.
I look back.
She does not turn.
She does not turn at all.
She does not—
Losing is where presence becomes absence. These women are physically there. I can see them, but they are out of reach. Not in a dramatic way. They are present in the quiet and ruinous augmentation. What’s missing? Voices? Names? Stories? Are their frames another form of silence?
No.
This vanishing is not complete. They scream to be heard, to be seen and acknowledged. And each piece grows stronger in repeating the somewhat fragmented histories that, through time, have pushed to erase and bring down the subjects into abstraction. There is no empty silence. In reality, it is so tightly packed with everything that is unable to be expressed.
For all women, the veil imposes expectation. As a voyeur, I am not allowed in, and I must sit with the discomfort of knowing I cannot enter. They face away from me. They look off into the horizon at something I cannot see. I want access—to the narrative, to find closure—but they resist it. This refusal to turn is a revolutionary act itself, and an antithesis to the notion that a woman’s only value is in visibility and decoration.
The friction between concealment as a form of preservation or as oppression, highlights a universal contradiction for all women. If identity is shaped by something else—the law, societal customs, male gaze—what is left? How much would I still own? And how much do I lose in turn?
There is no catharsis in this artwork. I am left in suspension, in a space of strain and compassion. So, I ask: who are these women? But also, what part of myself can I view in them? The answer will not come in words.
*
Rebel
re·bel (verb)
/rəˈbel/
1. to resist command, control or tradition.
2. to riot in defiance.
3. to tangle with obedience or conformity.
4. to pull back what has been denied.
In Turn (2023) divulges a rebellion that is not loud or staged, but arrives with anticipation and without performance. Stirring beneath the surface of rigid bodies, under veils and covers. The woman must not speak, but stand. And with that, must stand in a world where she is commanded to bow as a form of revolution.
To rebel, particularly for women in systems of androcentric power, commences with small acts: a single strand of hair breaking free from the confines of its braid, a small change in eye level, the refusal to turn. One to understand this completely, is Afshar. The wall didactic reads: ‘The twines of a plait are referred to as pichech-e-moo in Farsi, meaning the turn or fold of the hair. A revolution is a turning point, but it is never without loss’ (Afshar, 2025). Her work invites spectators to rethink and reframe the idea of resistance. To view it as not a puncture, but a pivot. A deliberate and collective pivot in order to turn toward something different.
Echoed by the very master of feminist literature, Virginia Woolf’s revolution is one of thought—of the self, an internal struggle. Carving a room and a story are her small steps to freedom. Afshar’s photography turns the head in a way that emphasises how form, structure and gesture are the architectural aspects of revolution and liberation. Essentially, a body placed in a different position, is a body that is saying: no.
These portraits are a reminder that no revolution is bloodless. Loss is inevitable. The loss of comfort and innocence.
Will I lose control?
The act of rebellion is to risk everything—punishment, misunderstanding, solitude. However, the act of remaining, and of not changing, is also a kind of death.
And so, it speaks to me:
They stand together. Like sisters.
See the curls flow freely in the wind for the first time. Shed the cover.
The thoughts of anxiety are smothered.
I hold the grief and defiance in the peace I can see.
And so, my final thought came to be.
Undoubtedly …
My hair falls out.
Tegan Parrish (she/her) is currently studying a Bachelor of Arts (Creative Writing) at RMIT University. From being a ‘Reading Champion’ and having pieces published in ‘World of Words’ and ‘OzKids in Print’ magazine as a young girl, she has always known that she would be a writer. With her work now focusing on fiction and poetry, she tackles themes of pain, love and the experiences of the ‘everyday person’. My hair falls out responds to Hoda Afshar’s photographic collection, as a means to upend cemented ideologies and illuminate the female experience.
All pieces thumbnail credits: Hoda Afshar, In Turn 2023 series, installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne. Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Meanjin/Brisbane. Photograph: Andrew Curtis
Image credits: Hoda Afshar, In Turn 2023 series, installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne. Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Meanjin/Brisbane. Photograph: Andrew Curtis