From Sikh mythology to the story of Samson and Delilah, hair is regarded as a symbol of power. That is also true in Latin America, as a new book by Buenos Aires-based photographer Irina Werning attests. Las Pelilargas (“The Long-haired Ones”) is a playful anthropological survey of sorts, collating 18 years of Werning’s images of girls and women in Argentina and neighbouring countries with striking lengthy tresses, flowing free in the frame in a manner that seems almost mystical.
As Werning notes: “It’s the culture of Latin America, where our ancestors believed that cutting hair was cutting life; that hair is the physical manifestation of our thoughts and our souls and our connection to the land.”
Las Pelilargas by Irina Werning will be published by GOST in February
