Where Hair and Care Meet: Review of Crépu: Our DNA

On February 1st and 2nd, Crépu: Our DNA kicked off at the Canadian Science and Technology Museum. Marking the beginning of Black History Month, Crépu: Our DNA is an artistic celebration and meditation on Black hair. The two-day event, developed by Sharlène Clarke of Hors Pair Social and Sandra Ngenge Dusabe of The Moving Art Gallery, showcased the multifaceted culture that is Black hair, and featured art forms including a hair-art runway, musical and spoken word performances, hair care live demonstrations, an art exhibition, film screenings, and an artisan vendor market. MCs Yanaminah Thullah and Simone Brown led the audience through the packed programming, riffing off each other and making the event feel light, inviting, and fun.

This was the third year Crépu took place, following the success of years one and two. Returning this year from the inaugural event was the art exhibition, something founder Ngenge Dusabe was very excited for, as was I. All but one of the artists were local, demonstrating the rich talent that Ottawa/Gatineau boasts. Crépu has established itself amongst the Ottawa scene, this is the second year in a row they partnered with Ingenium to host the event at the Science and Technology Museum, and the 2025 development into a two-day event only highlights the importance and need for Crépu. To add to the already packed programming, this year Crépu boasted not one but two short films, a competition element to the hair show, and, new this year, a pamper station where attendees were able to have mini consultations with the onsite vendors.  

I was curious how Crépu was conceived, having never experienced such varied programming in a single event on Black hair. 

“Sandra and I joke all the time that it kind of fell into our lap,” Clarke laughed as she relayed the series of events that led to Crépu. 

After having connected in October 2022, the two discussed ideas for an art show “about representations of Blackness that would push the boundaries,” as Ngenge Dusabe recalls, eventually winning $1000 in a pitch competition and putting on the first iteration at SAW Gallery in 2023. 

2025’s Crépu, however, was a behemoth of an event compared to past iterations. 

“We did not think it would grow this quickly,” Clarke shared. 

I cannot attempt to highlight only one program throughout the event, it would be disingenuous of me to say only one thing stuck out. I was constantly blown away by the breadth of skills and creativity that were represented at Crépu. I learned some quick and easy protective styles for my hair thanks to Frizé Frizé. I got to experience live barbering, which, presented on a stage with an easy conversational component, felt much like an interactive performance piece.

I got to sit down with Michel Ndikmasabo, the skilled barber and founder of ROVN, the first mobile barbershop in Ottawa. He invited me into his barbershop van while he set up for the evening ahead. The van is unique. It is decorated with wood siding and Black leather and feels like a luxurious upscale salon – because that is precisely what it is.

“For a long time, self-care for men was not really a thing,” Ndikmasabo told me, with the practice often being related to femininity. But the intimate and exclusive space of ROVN as a one-on-one service has made it easier and more comfortable for men to do self-care.

“[Clients] don't have to worry about judgment,” Ndikmasabo said, “C’est juste eux et moi.” ROVN represented a unique male experience amongst the programming of Crépu, which seemed to centre Black women, so it was refreshing to hear a man break down the gendered mental hurdles of hair care I am unfamiliar with. 

Following the live demos/performances by Frizé Frizé and ROVN was the much anticipated hair art runway. This year’s show featured three designers who created inspiring and intricate designs that challenged the limits of hair. DRS Anointed chose to implement the seasons into her designs, featuring symbols and shapes that recalled not only the changes of temperatures but the feelings of each season. Empress Charifa’s designs blended between hair and dress with the designs being sewn into the outfits themselves, and explored themes of duality and obligation versus choice. Montessa took for her design pearls as symbols of both inner and outer resilient beauty. The hair designs all featured extensive, gravity-defying shapes and it was mesmerizing to see the models float across the runway. It felt like a performance that we had been exclusively invited to share in. Each style had its own character and that character commanded the room.

On the second evening, the hair show was also a competition - a new development for Crépu’s programming. And while all three designers were fabulous by my standards, DRS Anointed ultimately won with her climate-themed designs. I was particularly wowed by the star and sun-inspired look featured on the second night. As filmmaker and director of On a Sunday at Eleven, Alica K Harris, said, “I’m always amazed by what our hair can do and the creativity of what our people can do.” 

A short break followed the hair art show where attendees could enjoy some food, visit the pamper station, and check out the artisan market and art exhibition. I headed for the market and exhibition, eager to meander through the artworks and products that encapsulate Black hair. The exhibition featured six artists and fourteen works, ranging from photography to painting to digital art, and one even had hair woven throughout. One of the larger imposing works by The Flying Bushman presented a young woman in the back of a tuk-tuk staring directly at the viewer. Snakes and her hair tangled together so that they both came to be her curls. With her serpentine hair and direct stare, it was impossible not to conjure up Medusa and feel frozen under her gaze. Black hair can have that effect - shock and awe and a commanding presence - and The Flying Bushman, alongside the various artists exhibited, demonstrated this through their art.  

Mediated against the silent but watchful art were the vendors in all their liveliness. A range of products and merchandise was for sale ranging from jewelry to candles to hair care products and beyond. One vendor, Of.Soleil, had dozens of earth-toned earrings myself and several others were gathered around, and though I was eyeing up a few, they were being sold out from under my greedy eyes. The demand for Black-owned local craft was immense.

I then made my way over to the auditorium for the programming happening there which included a musical performance, film screenings, and a panel discussion. Singer Kezi absolutely commanded the stage throughout her performance; she had the easy, confident, and likeable presence that only made her music that much more enjoyable. Particular favourites of mine were the traditional song in Kirundi and her original song performed for the first time at Crépu. She received a much-deserved standing ovation for her performance. 

Happening simultaneously to Kezi’s performance was a spoken word performance by Dominique Gené, which I unfortunately missed in the bustle of full programming. My only comment here can be that I wish I could have been in two places at once, as Gené performed at the demo stage/hub and I was still in the auditorium. 

After Kezi’s performance, Science and Technology Museum curators Sarah Jaworski and Alexa Lepera took to the stage and shared a brief collections-based research presentation on the history of barbering in Canada. I was particularly impressed with the ways in which the museum acknowledged a gap and was planning to incorporate Black barbering technologies and innovations into their research, as inspired by Crépu. Upon entering the museum for the event, I felt there was a form of knowledge transfer happening at Crépu, and being surrounded by historical scientific and technological objects, this feeling was only heightened. So I was heartened to see the museum looking to research and present the innovations and knowledge of Black communities through hair.    

This year Crépu featured two films, On a Sunday at Eleven by Alicia K Harris and Noeuds by Aïcha Morin-Baldé. I got to speak with Harris at the beginning of the event about her film.    

“I wanted to celebrate Black women and how our hair can be art.”

On a Sunday at Eleven tells the story of a young Black girl attending ballet class and the confrontations of whiteness and eurocentric beauty standards that perpetuate the art form. Over the course of the nine-minute short, the girl gets her hair done, visits a hair salon, attends class, and experiences a sort of otherworldly ballet performance of Black ballerinas with extensive and varied hair styles. 

“What I hope Black women take away [from the film] is a celebration of our hair,” Harris said. Throughout the film, Harris’s focus on the community that comes from Black hair spaces is evident. In one scene, the girl and her mother sit amongst a dozen or so other Black women as they do the girl’s hair and talk. On a Sunday at Eleven was made for Black women, and Harris was “excited to share [her] film with a mostly Black women audience.”

Noeuds, too, presented female Black hair and our experiences in a short documentary. Noeuds was captivating in its realness as three women, including Morin-Baldé herself, shared their hair journeys and the stigma and discrimination they have encountered. Noeuds struck a deep chord; memories of my own education in loving my hair surfaced one on top of the other making it feel as though the women on screen were speaking directly to me. Based on the silence that rippled throughout the audience, I can only presume many others felt similarly. 

A panel closed out the evening. On the second night, the panel featured Harris, Morin-Baldé, fashion designer Farrah, and was moderated by the co-hosts Thullah and Brown. The panel discussed the female Black experience and sharing in community through hair. They mulled over notions of often being the only Black girl in a setting and advocating for more inclusion. As Farrah said, “I’ll make my own table and invite my people to it,” a sentiment the panel and audience wholly supported. The Q&A that followed only emphasized the community-building that radiated throughout the discussion and event at large. Two people asked questions, one of whom was seeking advice in supporting the women in his life.

While Crépu: Our DNA may be over, Crépu Extended is running until May 10th, with events happening over the course of the next few months. Visual arts components featuring new works by various artists will be at the Carleton University Art Gallery (CUAG) from February 11th to May 4th, at SPAO: Photographic Art Centre from February 18th to March 7th, and at SAW Gallery from February 25th to May 10th, and, as I write this, in just a matter of days, two film screenings will be presented at the Digital Arts Resource Centre (DARC) on February 26th from 5-7pm.  

In the meantime, I am excited to see where Crépu goes in the future. “We would love to travel [and] see it coast to coast,” Ngenge Dusabe told me. 

And as Clarke reaffirmed, “we want to make sure artists, specifically Black artists, are being represented.” It seems Crépu may become a national event popping up across the country, celebrating and featuring Canadian Black artists and Black hair. 

As we wrapped up our phone call, Ngenge Dusabe wanted to thank everyone who has been supporting Crépu over the years. “It’s really been a labour of love and a labour of labour.”

So I want to finish off this review by congratulating everyone involved in Crépu this year. The labour and love woven into the event was abundant and, as Brown said in the opening of day two, Crépu really was all about “dope art and dope Black people.”