This week I join Mel Balkan to deliver a social change hairdressing salon as part of the Desert Festival in Alice Springs. We are crimping, shaving and styling for four big nights of wild desert style, celebrating the unique aesthetic which is so striking in remote and central Australia. As always, we will be creating

Australia’s most remote fashion week

  The ABC has just done a great story on the Warburton Fashion Week 2016 event I have been working on with Wilurarra Creative and the Ngaanyatjarra Health Service. It’s so fantastic to see a story celebrating the incredible, vibrant style culture of the Ngaanyatjarra Lands. Here’s your chance to get a taste.

Rolling on a red dirt runway

This July I am in Warburton, on the Ngaanyatjarra Lands in Western Australia, preparing for Warburton Fashion Week 2016. Wilurarra Creative is presenting a month of styling, performance and hair activities, leading up to a week of fashion-focused events. There will be a whole lotta fun and also some serious work to be done; you can

Are you inspired to be a Churchill Fellow?

The Churchill Trust recently celebrated fifty years of it’s phenomenal Churchill Fellowship program in Australia. To celebrate they have published ‘Inspiring Australians‘ to highlight the incredible breadth and depth of work these fellowships support. It’s a pretty amazing collection of stories, and I’m really humbled that a feature has been included about my Churchill Fellowship

What does Sir Madam Salon sound like?

LISTEN NOW Sir Madam Salon recently met with Nathan Morris from ABC Goldfields to have chat about social change hairdressing. But, as anyone who has experienced one of our salons knows, it wouldn’t be Sir Madam Salon without a bit of topsy turvy and so we asked Nathan to step into the role of hairdresser. Luckily

Sir Madam Salon is a sterling success

Sir Madam Salon is a pop-up hair salon interactive performance which recently featured at the Broken Heel Festival in Broken Hill. For three days we invited people to come along to enjoy styling each other’s hair and be part of the salon chatter about fashion, art, culture, gender and remote Australia. Want to see more? You

Sir Madam Salon at Broken Heel Festival

Sir Madam Salon creates unique opportunities for people to build unexpected connections through hairdressing. We are a social change hairdressing group, working across remote Australia and festivals. Sir Madam Salon is a collaboration between hairdresser Mel Balkan, live artist Ben Fox and cultural strategist Kate Fielding.   I’m excited to share the news that we will be appearing

Hair transformations

I’ve just spent a transformative fortnight with Mel Balkan: hairdresser, artist and all round livewire. This was the first intensive stint in an ongoing mentoring exchange around our expertise in hair, social change and art. Social change hairdressing is more common internationally, but relatively new in Australia. Mel is one of the few hairdressers in Australia
DOWNLOAD REPORT NOW Are you interested in finding out how salons, barbershops and social innovators all around the world are using hair and hairdressing to make their community a better place? Serious Style, the report from my Churchill Fellowship, is now available as a free download here. Get inspired by stories, photos and ideas from

Health, hair and culturally competent care!

Brooklyn, United States, during Churchill Fellowship. As part of my Churchill Fellowship I visited the incredible Arthur Ashe Institute, whose health promotion programs in salons and barbershops focus on ‘culturally competent care’. I was lucky enough to join several site visits to see the program in action. Very inspiring to see an approach which is

Churchill Fellowship is go!

My Churchill Fellowship is taking me to Scotland, Switzerland, France, England, South Africa and the United States. I am currently on the road, meeting people around the globe who are using hairdressing to make their community a better place. September 2013

Good Hair Days launches in Edinburgh

The Good Hair Days series of short films has launched as part of the Cut It Up Summit at the Edinburgh Fringe! Check out a teaser here. August 2013
I am currently in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, meeting hairdressers who run innovative programs and making a series of short films about these programs. Find out more about the project as it develops here. May 2013

Queen of the Desert film launched

Earlier this year I did some work as a Script Advisor on Alex Kelly’s fantastic new documentary, Queen of the Desert. The film features Starlady, a gutsy and gorgeous hairdresser who works in central Australia – including as a guest in our very own Wilurarra Salon. The film launched in October, and you can see
The 2012 WA Churchill Fellows were formally presented with their Fellowships last week at Government House, Perth, Australia. The presentation was followed by a dinner hosted by the WA Churchill Alumni Association. I was represented by the delightful Carly Davenport, and by all accounts the event was fantastic. Image is a detail from a painting