Rohina Hoffman: Hair Stories

Description

Hair Stories is a series of excerpted interviews and portraits of a diverse array of women which explores the complex relationship women have with their hair. Photographer Rohina Hoffman used her interviewing skills, which she developed in her training as a neurologist, to establish an intimate rapport that allowed for a truthful telling about the impact of hair in these womens' lives. Though it was conceived and shot before the #MeToo movement, this salient project presents hair as a metaphor for identity, femininity, and the manner in which women struggle for control over their own bodies in a misogynistic world. Hair Stories reflects that hair is more than just style or aesthetics; it is a physical manifestation of the history of women.

Rohina Hoffman was born in India and raised in New Jersey. She received a B.S. in Neural Sciences from Brown University and an M.D. from Brown University School of Medicine. While a student at Brown she studied photography at the Rhode Island School of Design. In 1994, she moved to Los Angeles to begin her residency in neurology at UCLA Medical Center but continued her interest in photography. After a career in neurology, she devoted herself full time as a fine art photographer with the support of mentors Aline Smithson and Ken Merfeld. Her award winning work has been exhibited in museums and galleries both nationally and internationally including the Griffin Museum of Photography, Southeast Center of Photography, dnj Gallery, Tilt Gallery, Stephen F. Austin State University School of Art and the Center for Fine Art Photography. Her photography has appeared in publications such as Shots Magazine, Edge of Humanity, and Lenscratch. She lives in Los Angeles and will be having an opening of Hair Stories at Brown University's Warren Alpert Medical School in January 2019.