The Salon Toynbee St

The Haircut Before the Party have set up a radical hair salon in Whitechapel offering people a convivial space where different discourses can meet through the act of cutting hair for free. People come to the salon because of the need for a haircut. These are offered for free, to explore other potential values within exchange when financial transactions are removed. In the salon, hair is cut as a gesture of friendship, in a similar way to how people have their hair cut by friends or family in a domestic environment. The haircuts function as an invitation into the salon as a social space, a space to meet, to talk and exchange ideas. It attempts to create a space that supports relationships based on commitment and trust, and in this belonging find methods that allow people to challenge the demands made on us by dominant powers.

The Hair Cut Before The Party also offers a pop up shop in which they create temporary interventions into both public and private spaces. In the past they have popped up in schools, galleries, theatres and bars.  

The Hair Cut Before The Party (THBTP) are a collective of friends who formed strong relationships while living in squatted communal housing. In this environment, themes of power, property and collectivity are lived through and continually challenged. Through the salon, the collective are attempting to open up these themes and questions by providing a space in which to bring together wider groups of people.

The Haircut Before the Party on this is tomorrow
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