Tickets From £15 | Complimentary for Patrons
Doors open and exhibition viewing – 6:30pm
Panel conversation – 7:15pm
Exhibition viewing and music – 8:30pm
The salon is often understood as a place of beauty. For many communities, however, it has always been much more than that: a place of care, conversation, creativity, transformation and belonging.
Anchored by Charlotte Mensah’s 40-year journey in hair, The Modern Salon: A Cultural Institution explores the salon as a cultural space and asks what happens when we understand it not simply as a business, but as a place where relationships, ideas and identities are formed.
Bringing together perspectives from hair, art, design and cultural history, the conversation will explore the values that give these spaces their meaning: trust, hospitality, mentorship, creativity and community. It will also consider how the influence of the salon extends beyond its walls into friendship, collaboration, education, products and wider cultural life.
Because the salon was never only about hair. It was always about people.
Moderated by Funmi Fetto, award-winning journalist, author and Contributing Editor at British Vogue.
Charlotte Mensah
Award-winning hairstylist, founder of Hair Lounge and Manketti Oil, and British Beauty Council Patron.
Dr Madeleine Haddon
Curator at V&A East and curator of Charlotte Mensah: Community Matters.
Jacqueline Douglas
Creative director of Charlotte Mensah: Community Matters, whose work spans fashion, image-making and visual culture.
Following the conversation, the evening continues with exhibition viewing and music from Judah, Deviation co-founder and Sound & Culture Historian, and DJ Lil Minx.
Join us for an evening of conversation, culture, community and music.
