Tsawwar... Sara Kontar

"We’ve been caught between two places, swinging in the middle, trying to build something like a home. During this time, I watch my mother with her scissors, cutting her friends’ hair as they always ask her to. She is not a hairdresser and never has been, but here in exile, they only trust each other’s hands. This image of Majeda in her apartment in Paris in 2023, along with the hands of my mother Joumana after she cut Majeda’s hair, is part of my long-term project *Therefore, I Cut*. I think I was trying, or perhaps I’m still trying, to understand the experience of exile. In my research, I use photography to materialise time, and in doing so, I materialise a home I don’t have. In this photo, Majeda, my mother’s best friend here, is featured. She is also the mother of my best friend, and together, we created a new, small family. It’s important to have a family when you’re cut off. While documenting our moments together, I realised that nobody goes to hairdressers; we have always been cutting each other’s hair. My mother, Joumana, is my official hairdresser. She never really learned how to do it, so each time she cuts my hair, it’s a surprise. I ask them all the time why they refrain from going to hairdressers. Majeda talks about trust and comfort, as well as language barriers and financial difficulties, but most importantly, she wants to feel beautiful. Cutting hair is often related to loss—it’s a part of your body that you choose to remove, but it grows back from the roots. I think the realisation I made about the link between hair and exile is because someone told me that we carry memories in our hair. There are parts of it I still carry that went through all this experience of war and exile, and it felt so heavy, so I asked my mother to cut it all."