what our hair carries
hairitage is an ongoing ceramic archive exploring the textures of Black memory.
some of my earliest memories of identity, pride and belonging were shaped through hair. my cousins and I lined up in my grandmother's kitchen on sunday afternoons as she worked her way down the row with a hot comb. my mom showing up to my all-white school anytime another parent or teacher singled me out, labeling my hair a “distraction.” there was something sacred about being held, cared for and looked after in that way. before I had the language for it, those moments taught me that hair could be an expression of love, dignity, and culture. and to never let anyone make me feel ashamed for showing up exactly as I was.
each hairitage vessel in salon I began with one of my own memories. but the longer I sat with them, the more I realized those memories were just one entry in a much larger story. the things we inherit aren't always obvious in the moment, but with time, experience, and context, we're able to look back and see them in a new light. in doing so, we develop a better understanding not only of where we've come from, but who we are becoming.
in that way, I think of Black hair as a living archive — one of our oldest cultural technologies. Black hairstyles have endured for centuries not because they remained unchanged, but because each generation chose to carry them forward. through them, culture and memory are braided together, passing from hands to heads, from one generation to the next.
each hairitage vessel asks us to see Black hair not simply as a style or vehicle of self-expression, but as a vessel for memory.
because Black hair has never just been hair.
it's identity.
it's community.
it's the stories we inherit and carry forward long before we realize we're carrying them.
it's our hair.
and this is our heritage.
from the artist
I began making hairitage after returning to ceramics following brain surgery. in preparation for surgery, I had to cut off all of my hair, a change I truly underestimated the impact of. during recovery, as my relationship to my body and my sense of self shifted, I realized my identity was also changing in ways I didn't understand yet.
by no means did my hair define me, but catching my reflection in the mirror after surgery often made me pause because the person staring back at me was not the person I held in my memory. she felt disconnected from me. a break in my line of self-identity.
when I started this work, I didn't recognize the significance of beginning a body of work through the cultural language of Black hair, but that’s often the case with my creativity — my hands know well before my brain understands.
ceramics became the natural language for this work because vessels are made to hold what matters. for thousands of years, they have held food, water, seeds, medicines, and ashes. with hairitage, I'm asking them to hold things that are intangible: memory. identity. the rituals, relationships, and stories that shape who we become.
I often think about Dave the Potter, just one of the countless enslaved Black craftsman, who, at a time when Black people were forbidden to read and write, used his vessels to question the very institution keeping him in bondage.
he signed his name in clay when he and his name were never meant to be known, let alone endure. and now, centuries later, his work still exists, reminding me that clay has long been more than a material.
it has been a witness to both our preservation and our refusal to disappear.
the first hairitage vessel. simple in form, and topped with coily hair and an afro pick, it introduced the question that continues to shape this archive:
what does our hair hold?
from this first vessel, the archive began. hairstyles became more textured. the vessels became more familiar. memories became something you could hold.
every vessel that followed traces its lineage back to this one.
it reminds me that archives don't begin with certainty. they begin with curiosity. with a single question asked honestly enough that you're willing to spend years following (and documenting) where it leads.
artist’s proof no. S00-000
AP-S00-000
the first hairitage vessel
brown speckled stoneware and glaze, 2025
about the artist
Sasha Kai is a storyteller exploring the many dimensions of Black American life through ceramics, oral history, writing, and film.
across each medium, her work captures and preserves the everyday genius and ordinary brilliance of working-class Black people, transforming familiar rituals, stories, and lived experiences into lasting cultural archives.
guided by the principle of Sankofa, her practice is rooted in the belief that we must look back and remember in order to find our way forward.
her ongoing ceramic archive, hairitage, explores Black hair as a vessel for memory, identity, and cultural transmission.
in addition to her ceramics practice Wyld Heart Studios, she is also the creator of The Sankofa Tapes, an oral history archive preserving the stories of her family in their own words, and Wyld at Heart, an ongoing digital series exploring healing, creativity, and the process of becoming.
across every medium, her work returns to the same enduring question:
what do we inherit, and what will we leave behind for those who come after us?