Lately I have been feeling like I should be living in the UK. There seems to be a higher population of redheads there. Every time I come across a gathering or a really cool event for redheads it is usually there. Kind of feeling like I am missing out on all this cool stuff. I just became aware of an artist collecting Gingers. Well, portraits of them. I was alerted to an article in a UK paper. When I had a chance to check it out I knew I had to share. The artist Anthea Pakroy is from South Africa and is raising funds to publish her book to accompany her art work. Looks like she is half way there. This fellow Ginger has photographed men, women and children for this project over a few years.
Why do I collect gingers you ask?
I started photographing gingers in August 2010 and to date have collected over 500! As a ginger myself, what initially interested me was the beautiful, romantic colour palette of a ginger person and all that it connotes. It was my first shoot, where I had seven gingers gathering at the same time, which kick-started my collection process. There was an innate sense of community and collective experience that emerged from amongst the ‘otherness’ of the gingers. Similar stories, both complimentary and derogatory, united this same-haired ‘race’ of people. This indefinable sense of kinship and nationhood has been reinforced countless times during my project, especially at the Redhead Days in the Netherlands.
There has been a heightened interest in gingers in the last few years, as can be seen in shows like South Park and the Catherine Tate show. What is this strange new fascination with gingers? We have always had a mythical quality to us – we are only 2% of the world population and are rumoured to be going extinct; we were considered witches in medieval times; Adam’s first wife Lilith was a disobedient redhead who was considered a demon and fled the Garden of Eden.
You can view the individual portraits of the Gingers at www.icollectginger.com Ginger tally 505
Looking through NOT all are Gingers, but most are. I think it is a pretty cool project. I look forward to the book being published.
so cool. i've got 2 ginger kids 🙂
Wow, very interesting. Never heard of anyone doing this before.
When I read "Collecting Gingers", I totally imagined some strange collector cards series with pictures of random redheads on them.
Thank you for the Laundry sensitive skin giveaway! Also love your site. New to here and I have alot to read and explore. Thank you!
and I was part of the project and the book. I wish Anthea all the success under the sun, she deserves it.
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What a great project perhaps we'll meet one day & you can photograph my daughter & I !
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