HAIR LOCK in sign language

How to sign "lock of hair" in American Sign Language (ASL)?

Meaning: A piece or pieces of hair that has been cut from.

Variation.

Deaf performance art

This 13-minute video is an edited of the actual performance art "Locks of Love" that lasted somewhere between 30 minutes and 45 minutes more or less.

The performance art was presented by media artist Jolanta Lapiak at the Asiatopia International performance art festival in November 2008 in Bangkok, Thailand. She invited the audience to participate in an interactive "play".

Locks of Love

Artist statement: "In the opening, I cut a piece of my hair to create a brush. Then I chose a first observer in the audience to cut a small piece of her hair and invited her to dip in ink with my hairbrush and write something on the rice roll paper. The person then taped her piece of hair on the rice paper.

"Then I handed the scissors to the person to choose the next person in the audience to cut another person's hair. Then the next person taped his/her piece of hair on the paper, wrote something, and received the scissors for the next hapless person. And so on and on for many minutes.

Locks of Love

"During this performance, this process became a bit wilder and wilder. A person sometimes would chase a running friend and cut a big piece of hair. Many of the chosen audience wrote in different languages on the paper. This went on and on till the moment I decided the right time to stop when the last person wrote the last amusing message "stop this war" on the rice paper."

"So it was the exciting time, finally, I invited a person to cut a Japanese woman's waist-long braided locks of hair. The audience gasped; some screamed 'no'. A guy intervened, offering to cut his medium-long hair to rescue the Japanese lady."

Locks of Love
Lock of hair cut

"Again, I summoned one of the participants to cut the Japanese girl's long braided lock of hair. Eventually, some realized it was a secret plan. The locks of hair were donated to the "Locks of Love" organization for children with cancer."

"How it all started was that when I sojourned in Japan for three months, Asami initially invited me to cut her hair. Seeing this as an honor, instead of cutting her hair in her home, I decided to invite her to come to the festival in Thailand to be part of this performance."

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