Origins of the Afro Comb: 6,000 years of Culture, Politics and Identity is an exhibition exploring how functional objects can also be works of art, tools of artistic creation and symbols of the cultural identity, proximity and diversity of African countries. One object: a kaleidoscope of meanings.

The beginning of the exhibit confronts you with the juxtaposition of Antony Romani’s ‘Clenched Fist Comb’ (1972) and an Egyptian comb with horns. Despite the 5000 years separating the two pieces, holding the black fist and the bull’s horns are both acts of appropriation. The hand holding the clenched fist in the 70s visually and psychologically embraces the Civil Rights movement and the Egyptian piece symbolises the acceptance of the power and values of that object. 

Combs can be seen as an extension of human hands and hence of artistic and creative power. This symbolic value is crystallised by one of the highlights of the exhibition – the Mmo mask of the Igbo people of Nigeria. This mask shows coiled braids creating elaborated concentric patterns. Four small combs are inserted in the hair in such a way that a sense of fluid continuity is maintained between the white dentils and the black braids, as if they formed an unbroken creative wave.

Particularly successful is the display of 19th and 20th century combs from central, east and western Africa in a single window, according to their geographical location. This comprehensive window feels as though it were open in the heart of Africa as it is able to direct the viewer’s vision from east to west, noting differences and similarities.

The installation visually links with the opening linocuts series 'Drawing Combs: Davunu/ ‘Afe Nutata’, in which combs like the iconic clenched fist, the palm leaf fan-shaped Cameroonian comb, the east African double sided ones or the brass made one from Morocco, becomes themselves the pictorial subject, frequently repeated as to create polychromatic patterns. 

Many of the exhibits shows carved or incised human figures: from a 4000-3500BC Egyptian Hippopotamus ivory with human head shaped handle, to 20th century Edo state Nigerian ones showing plastically carved knee-bent fertility figures, or remarkable 19th century exemplar from Ghana where female figures show a carved heart or a necklace with a cross pendant.

Origins of the Afro Comb is a memory of Africa and of African heritage – its bronze heads bring to mind the 1897 British punitive expedition in Benin and the clenched fist comb is a reminder of the Black Power salute of the 1968 Olympic Games. The exhibition takes the viewer through the continent and across time, documenting through photography the richness of the cultural diversity crystallised by numerous hair styles, as varied as the combs exhibited. As Pliny the Elder said: "there is always something new out of Africa.”