Willow Smith Has Head Shaved While Locked in Glass Box for 24-Hour Art Exhibit
Willow Smith can no longer whip her hair back and forth.
The Red Table Talk star, 19, had her head shaved on Thursday as part of the conclusion of an art exhibit she was participating in at the Geffen Contemporary at the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles.
Mom Jada Pinkett Smith documented the hair change on social media, posting a series of videos on Instagram and her Instagram Story.
“The start of the new beginning,” Jada, 48, wrote. “Willow Smith at her interactive experience. My baby shaved her head! Again!”
Willow and musical collaborator Tyler Cole, who gave Willow her haircut, had spent 24-hours locked in a glass room at MOCA in a performance art piece demonstrating the eight emotional stages related to anxiety: paranoia, rage, sadness, numbness, euphoria, strong interest, compassion, and acceptance.
RELATED: Willow Smith Will Spend 24 Hours in a Glass Box at LA Art Museum to Explore Her Anxiety
@willowsmith at her interactive experience. My baby shaved her head! Again!
A post shared by Jada Pinkett Smith (@jadapinkettsmith) on Mar 12, 2020 at 6:46pm PDT
The pair rented out the space themselves, and allowed audience members to watch them live for up to 15 minutes at a time, according to the Los Angeles Times. They stayed in each emotion for three hours, breaking for periods of sleeping and eating as well as short bathroom trips.
All was also livestreamed for those who wanted to watch from home.
Though they were non-verbal the entire time, Willow and Cole used paint, canvases, and other materials to illustrate their feelings.
Their exhibit ended with the pair releasing their new album, The Anxiety.
“We understand this is a very sensitive subject. And we don’t want to be like, ‘Our experience is the experience.’ This is just us expressing our personal experience with this,” Willow told the Los Angeles Times, citing climate change and Kobe Bryant’s unexpected death as recent contributors to her own anxiety. “I think everyone has a fear of just not knowing what’s going to happen in the future, not knowing if you’re on the right path, not knowing if you’re making the right choices.”
“This is not so that people are like, ‘Oooh!’ This is for awareness,” she added. “The first thing we’re going to be writing on our title wall is something along the lines of: ‘The acceptance of one’s fears is the first step toward understanding.’ So then you know this is on something real. This is for a real cause.”
Our debut album drops THIS FRIDAY @theanxiety
A post shared by Tyler Cole (@existentialcrisisboy) on Mar 10, 2020 at 5:55pm PDT
This isn’t the first time Willow has been candid about her mental health.
Last summer, she opened up to PEOPLE, sharing that she struggled with sudden fame and the overwhelming expectations that came after her 2010 pop single “Whip My Hair” became a hit.
“I was super young, and I had a dream, but all I really wanted to do was sing and I didn’t equate that with all the business and the stress that ended up coming with it,” she said.
By her early teens, Willow began engaging in self-harm. Cutting, she said, provided “a physical release of all the intangible pain that’s happening in your heart and in your mind.”
As she read about both science and spirituality, however, “I was like, ‘This is pointless — my body is a temple,’ and I completely stopped. It seemed literally psychotic after a certain point because I had learned to see myself as worthy,” she said.
