Esther Calixte-Béa | Instagram Takeover

Fast Forward to 2020, I was looking through my phone when I saw all that I had created in my ‘humble beginnings,’ where I thought: ‘Hey! What happened to you?’ I wasn’t looking outside of the box anymore; I was empty and drained. I was lost. Emotionally, I felt trapped in a white cube and the stress of the pandemic made it worse. One day, I was babysitting my 4- and 5-year-old cousins. They shared their drawings with me. The 4-year-old showed me his drawing of Timbits with arms and legs and he LAUGHED at every drawing he made. There was so much joy and fun in the way he created. He didn’t take himself too seriously and drew whatever he felt like drawing. He was free. And the 5-year-old waited for me to judge his work with a straight face. Afraid of what I was going to say. AND that’s when I saw it… ‘my problem’

Creating an Imaginary World
In order to understand what I’ll be talking about, you have to understand who I AM. I am a Haitian Ivoirian ‘Hairy’ woman, whose body hair was being talked about on the internet. I called myself a body hair activist in 2019 known as @queen_esie when I created the Lavender Project. A body hair activist is someone who normalizes female body hair by removing the shame through creating content and/or educating the public about this taboo. I photographed and shared my chest hair on Instagram wearing a dress I made accompanied by poetry and texts. My goal was to challenge the taboo and talk about femininity in relation to body hair. A few months later, my Ivorian aunt contacted me sharing that women in our family are very hairy and that, in our tribe, Wè, it was seen as something beautiful. With that knowledge, I later tried to combine my activism and art in a way that could make sense to me.

I decided that I could create a world and a community where I felt I belonged but a world where body hair was worn with pride. A world much inspired by my origins where community mattered and helping one another was part of culture. I gave meaning to things, used words in Haitian creole and in guéré (Ivorian dialect), but I also transformed words and created new meanings. I invented traditions and origin stories. I created a symbol perfectly illustrating my feelings of limitedness, struggle, power and created the “Fyète Souhou-te” tribe. Juxtaposing the words “Pride” in Haitian Creole and “Divine” in guéré, almost referencing to my last name being both Haitian and Ivoirian combined. Women of this tribe were called ‘fyète’ or ‘kéa-nin’. Kéa-nin meaning godly in guéré. They were warriors and keepers of knowledge. The chief or leader was called ‘Fyète Souhou-teî.’

As a woman and as a black woman representation is very important. As a woman, I think of the body positivity movement. The importance of seeing diverse body types in media. When society shows us one body type, it tells us to strive to look like that whether it is unattainable or not. Any other option is simply unacceptable and undesirable. As a black woman, when society purposely doesn’t show people that look like me it tells me that I don’t matter or even don’t exist. Is creating a world & tribe about representation? Yes! But also about healing and about the power you have as a person, as an artist to CREATE! I’ve created characters that help me to better understand my relation to beauty, to the feeling of being alone and powerless, as well as HOPE.

I thought about my ancestors. I thought about decolonizing beauty. I thought about hair in African culture. Creating the hairy women part of the tribe meant creating PRIDE inspired by my culture. Hair has always been important, as it was a sign of marital status or which tribe you belonged to, it was your identity. In documentaries, tribes are portrayed as a monolith. In order to illustrate that each person has their own sense of self outside of their tribe, I made sure their clothes, hairstyles and jewelry were unique. I wanted each character to be a creator.

“The chief known as the Fyète Souhou-teî is the hairiest woman in the tribe. A chief can also be chosen in a competition based on the participants’ creativity. In this competition, each member must create the most artistic design with their pubic hair, impress the tribe members be chosen by vote and then be anointed through a ritual done near a river or stream. The pouring of water on the chief and the staff is a sign of cleansing and oneness with the Earth.”
– excerpt from “Creation of an Ethereal World” Solo Exhibiton Booklet at @lacentralegaleriepowerhouse in 2021.

What now?’ At the beginning of the year, I went to France, Belgium, Austria and this summer I went to Ivory Coast. I was inspired by so many artists! Currently, I am working on new paintings thinking about how I can bring the Fyète Souhou-te even more into our world. I am creating with plaster, brainstorming ideas and thinking about what a painting can be. I am thinking of poetry, writing, fashion, my next photography project and thinking about a lot of things that I can’t put into words. But if you are curious and want to know what’s next for me follow @artist_esie. “See you in Té!”