When Nike put out their recent campaign last week, they could not have known the storm it will cause, although they probably could have guessed. When Swedish model and artist Arvida Byström posed for Adidas Originals’ Superstar range in 2017 with unshaved legs she received death threats, while Ashley Armitage’s campaign for razor brand Billie featuring women’s body hair prompted strongly negative reactions.

The image in query here, featured Nigerian-American visual artist and musician Annahstasia Enuke along with her arm raised, revealing a small patch of hair on her armpits. While many praised the brand for showing visible underarm hair, as we all know women existing of their natural state is usually met with outrage and the backlash soon arrived, with many commenters expressing disgust on the body hair.

“To be honest, I used to be mostly baffled that it rose any debate in any respect,” Enuke says of the response. “I don’t see why it’s anyone’s opinion what I do with my body and I definitely wasn’t expecting people to be so ruffled by it.”

Coping with others feeling entitled to having opinions about her body just isn’t something that’s recent to Enuke. Her recent piece of performance art, “Mutual Agreement,” which sees the musician shave her head on camera, got here about after she grew uninterested in the comments and requests she would get about her hair while modelling. “I experienced such an overt disrespect of the time and labour that goes into textured hair. Clients would ask me to take out my braids, put in my braids, switch from braids to locs, cut it and dye it pink…. every week a unique request,” she says. “In some unspecified time in the future, I used to be so frustrated with feeling like I didn’t own my very own aesthetic selections I plotted to shave it off in a reasonably dramatic way.”

Here we spoke with Enuke about her art and the complex relationships we will have with our appearance and body.

Tell us a bit about yourself and where you grew up? How has your background shaped who you’re as an individual?
Annahstasia Enuke: I’m from Los Angeles, California. I’m Nigerian-American. My mom is white and from the Mid-west, she has Polish/German heritage and my dad is Nigerian who spent his youth between England and Nigeria. They’re each fashion designers and have amazing artistic minds, so my upbringing was very constructive by way of my artistic development. My standards were set high for myself and for them. I remember once I was 5 years old, I did a painting of a poinsettia and my dad liked it a lot he bought it from me for a dollar and said he would buy any piece he liked off of me. He never bought one other one! But me holding my breath for that taught me the invaluable lesson of standing up for what I create, despite “market demand”.

I used to be raised in a little bit of a cultural bubble. What my parents brought into the house is what I learned. This hodgepodge of Nigerian, Midwestern, Asian, and European cultures. The things my parents enjoyed were normally not informed directly by our physical surroundings as we moved around LA.

Do you remember the primary time you were conscious of your appearance?
Annahstasia Enuke: I feel it was 4th grade. I had terrible eyes already and I used to be begging my mom for contacts and a relaxer for my hair. I used to be one in all a number of black girls at a mostly Korean and Filipino school. And I assume I had some sense that I desired to feel more comfortable and fit into my surroundings. I remember the day I showed as much as summer school with my press out and contacts. I felt like a recent bitch. I feel that was the primary time I looked within the mirror and experienced “dressing up” from my natural state.

How has your relationship with beauty and body image evolved?
Annahstasia Enuke: I feel I’m at this point where I’m rapidly returning to my childhood comfort with my body. Once I was really young, I used to be quite the centre of attention. All the time telling stories and bringing recent friends home from the park. Apparently, I could rap back then and was a greater dancer. As I grew up, I got increasingly more self-conscious and afraid of my expression. It’s hard to point to any particular oppression. But at around 20, I realised how dulled I felt in lots of elements of my life.

Have there been times where you’ve felt insecure? How did you overcome this?
Annahstasia Enuke: Yes, I feel everyone meets insecurity in some unspecified time in the future. In myself, I’ve observed that it normally arises once I know I haven’t done my best, or I haven’t arrived in peak form. However the lesson I’ve learned is to be more patient with my development and allowing it to be visible. Nobody is really put together, everyone seems to be working on something and that little reminder makes it lots easier to simply show up and be who you’re that day.

What’s it about experimenting together with your look that you just enjoy a lot?
Annahstasia Enuke: I really like the reintroduction to people I already know and the potential for meeting strangers as someone I’ve never been. I don’t normally change my look too drastically, however the subtle changes definitely dictate which elements of my personality shine through. It’s nice to see those versions of myself come out into the open.

Is beauty something you are attempting to capture in your visual work or something that you just reject? What’s your relationship to “beauty”?
Annahstasia Enuke: I don’t think I pursue any pre-existing ideas of beauty in my work, just what appeals on to me. Forms inspired by nature, certain colors I find to be luxurious, certain textures I think to be soothing. I think beauty is comfort within the soul. So I create with that directive of calming mine and I suppose that’s where the sweetness lies.

In your recent single “Mutual Agreement” you address your relationship together with your hair and shave your head within the video. Are you able to tell us a bit about what inspired the song and what it means to you?  
Annahstasia Enuke: “Mutual Agreement” was a chunk of performance art I’d been considering for some time and it’s following track “Sacred Bull” provided an ideal bed for the prose to lie in. I had been attempting to grow my hair out simply because I used to be sick of dying it and desired to experiment with braids and locs and other hairstyles I didn’t have access to with short hair. But within the technique of growing it, I used to be also modelling full time and I experienced such an overt disrespect of the time and labour that goes into textured hair.

Clients would ask me to take out my braids, put in my braids, switch from braids to locs, cut it and dye it pink…. every week a unique request, some I acquiesced to and others I said no. But in some unspecified time in the future, I used to be so frustrated with feeling like I didn’t own my very own aesthetic selections so I plotted to shave it off in a reasonably dramatic way. Hair does hold burdens, holds emotions and memories holds the people who touched it and the air that carried through it. So while you shave all of it off you only feel lighter, freer of your yesterday.

We regularly tie emotional upheaval in our lives to drastic hair decisions. Why do you’re thinking that we’ve such an emotional relationship with our hair?
Annahstasia Enuke: I feel that dynamic is about control. As women, our hair is a large signifier to our identity, whether we prefer it or not people feel they’ll make accurate judgments based on how we style it. Which might feel very suffocating, feeling like you’ve gotten to take care of a certain veneer. That ability to take that perception into your personal hands is usually a straightforward and comparatively independent solution to liberate oneself from what event caused the expansion you experience. Hair is like our exoskeleton we outgrow it, shed and produce a recent one.

Tell us a bit about your Sacred Bull project which encompasses each visuals and sound. What was the concept behind it? What does the symbol of the bull mean to you?  
Annahstasia Enuke: The concept was to put down a house base from which to grow artistically and publicly. I desired to introduce myself in the way in which that I’m meeting myself as an artist for the primary time. I’ve all the time been an artist, but I feel something happens while you break the veil of delivering something to the general public and standing behind it. It makes a dull thing sacred. That’s why I selected the title Sacred Bull. Besides being a Taurus, I’ve all the time resonated with the Bull energy: peaceful, collected and free roaming, but fierce and violent once stirred. I see numerous myself in those descriptors and the sacred aspect of Sacred Bull is my ownership of who I’m, uplifting myself and believing in myself. Adorning myself in gold and giving myself power. Knowing that my peacefulness just isn’t a weakness and that my fury is that if anything the key to my ambition. The entire project was really just a couple of deep self-acceptance.

You latterly featured in a Nike campaign that caused some strong reactions. How did it make you are feeling to see the comments?
Annahstasia Enuke: To be honest, I used to be mostly baffled that it rose any debate in any respect. I don’t see why it’s anyone’s opinion what I do with my body and I definitely wasn’t expecting people to be so ruffled by it. I mostly found it hilarious, the media circus around it. Especially when there are some seriously heartbreaking and seriously beautiful things happening on this planet all of sudden. It’s a bit weird for international media to give attention to women’s body hair of all trivial things.

I do after all appreciate the support people offered, but the entire drama was so left of field I barely paid it any attention aside from to screenshot the particularly juicy insults I got. It was a superb laugh.

Why do you’re thinking that body hair on women causes such outrage?
Annahstasia Enuke: I actually cannot understand why. It’s probably a really complicated and culturally specific answer that don’t have the time to dedicate to finding straight away.

How do you’re thinking that our understanding of beauty has shifted with the evolution of technology?
Annahstasia Enuke: I feel it’s lots easier to follow a hive mind now. And personality is dissociated from beauty online. So the fantastic thing about an individual becomes completely dictated by trend almost. I feel there may be more opportunity for area of interest now so you may all the time pursue more reality-based virtues but by way of what has change into “business,” it’s almost at trope levels. Like you could possibly assemble “beauty” with a mood board out of your discover page. Even should you don’t subscribe to it or curate it for yourself.

What do you’re thinking that the long run of beauty is?
Annahstasia Enuke: I’m undecided, but I hope it becomes more diverse, more accessible and fewer consumer based.

This month Annahstasia Enuke shall be supporting Lenny Kravitz on his European tour. Find out more here.