Headdresses and coverings are among the most powerful expressions of cultural identity. In Hybrid Heads, designer Daniela Dossi examines the symbolic, political and social values of contemporary headgear, starting from an archive of press photos from around the world. She developed a method and an open design system to remix headgear, combining different cultural identities in the process.

The combinations of textile samples with archive images can result in new hybrid designs, such as the textile of a specific type of headgear from Kyrgyzstan, which is combined with the shape of Pakistani headgear, for example.

The textile research and the first collection of hybrid headgear are the outcome of Daniela Dossi’s long-term residency in the open textile workshop of Manoeuvre, a collective for artistic co-creation in the Rabot quarter in Ghent. Hybrid Heads wants to develop new hybrid cultural identities, with its own collections, questioning the contemporary roles and stereotypes. In an era of cultural globalisation, everyone inhabits a diverse context, in which intercultural encounters influence your cultural identity.

The information continues beneath the illustrations.