In this hands-on workshop, participants will explore synthetic hair as a fiber and creative material while creating their own wearable mask. Using synthetic hair, miscellaneous accessories, and found materials, we’ll experiment with texture, layering, form, and adornment.
The workshop introduces participants to the ways hair has held cultural, personal, and symbolic meaning within African American and Black communities, while also considering the mask as a form of identity, transformation, protection, and expression across cultures. No prior experience with fiber or mask-making is required—just an openness to experiment and create.
About DeJeonge Reese
DeJeonge Reese (she/her), IRR's former Spring 2026 Artist-in-Residence, is a multidisciplinary visual artist and educator from Yeadon, Pennsylvania, whose work uses material exploration as a form of storytelling rooted in Black history, ancestry, and identity. Working across mixed media, textile and fiber art, sculpture, installation, and performance, Reese builds visual narratives that honor inherited knowledge, lived experience, and the labor of those who came before her. She holds degrees from The Lincoln University of Pennsylvania and Moore College of Art and Design.
Reese’s practice is grounded in historical and ancestral research, alongside personal experience. Drawing from archival materials, oral histories, and family research, her work often bridges past and present, translating inherited memory and cultural knowledge into contemporary forms. Rather than illustrating history directly, Reese approaches research as an active, embodied process—using material exploration to connect personal narratives with collective Black histories.
Reese’s work has been exhibited throughout Philadelphia, New York, and beyond, including at Philadelphia International Airport, Rush Arts Philadelphia, The Art Trust, and One Mile Gallery. She is a 2023 recipient of the Mural Arts Philadelphia Black Artist Fellowship and has participated in several artist residencies. Reese is the current Fibers/Textile Coordinator for the Spring Pentaculum at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.
An educator since 2016, Reese teaches in the Visual Arts Department at Lincoln University of Pennsylvania, encouraging and inspiring students to appreciate art on a deeper and more personal level. Across her studio work and teaching, DeJeonge Reese uses material exploration as an act of remembrance—honoring ancestry, preserving memory, and asserting Black presence across time.
Co-sponsored by the IU Civil Rights Heritage Center
Originally published at raceandresilience.nd.edu.