The Cracheh is a traditional Korean headdress, which is both puzzling and unsettling. It is made of an enormous mass of plaited hair twisted into a gigantic bun. To wear such a headdress, a woman must use extra hairpieces that she will plait with her own.
As I was working with the rubber of the empty inner tube and the hair, which appeared to me dull, limp and lifeless, I also had in mind the shiny, thick and bouncy hair reminiscent of traditional Korean lacquer.
The round shape of the inner tube depicts the bun, which appears to have no beginning and no end, whereas the valve is a reminder of the golden stick pins that Korean women love to put in their hair to set off their deep black colour.
These piece has been achieved thanks to a century-old lacquer technic, the “Bodiless lacquerware”: the bike inner-tube was lacquered daily with coat after coat, adding ever more detail to its shape. The making of a “Bodiless lacquerware” piece requires several months of work.
Series of neckpieces. Korean traditional natural lacquer, inner tube, gold powder.