Designer Sanne Visser is saving hair from landfill and challenging the stigma of working with waste through her art which transforms human hair into rope.

Ms Visser, 29, who is originally from Holland but lives and works in Haringey, north London, first started working with hair more than a decade ago.

Ms Visser said: “My starting point was really that there’s so much of this material that’s being under-utilised.”

She added: “There is no system in place for the recycling of this. So currently, it’s all being sent to landfill, which is really difficult to break down. It’s actually causing more harm than good.”

The human hair that Ms Visser uses in her work, which entails everything from bags to ropes for swings, is predominantly sourced from hairdressers and manufacturers of hair extensions, but she also receives donation from individuals.

Despite using offcuts and salvaging strands otherwise destined for the dump, Ms Visser is aware that sourcing hair does not come without its environmental impact, noting the carbon footprint associated with working with international suppliers.

“That’s all to overcome with design research. It’s just different waste streams requires different design approaches,” she said.

On Saturday (26 March) Ms Visser will lead a workshop at the Horniman Museum as part of its Hair: Untold Stories exhibition in which she will demonstrate how to make rope from hair.

Ms Visser said: “The workshop is a demonstration of rope making with the use of hair, so it’s actually using an ancient technique of traditional rope making, which goes back centuries.

“I’m going to use my self-developed rope machine that I developed with two engineers and, basically, with that rope machine I’m inviting visitors to come and see the process, but also people can come in and turn the handle and make rope themselves using hair yarn.”

Ms Visser said participants at the free demonstration will be able to take some of the finished product home with them and she plans to use what remains in her future work.

“I’ll be embedding it into different projects or products,” she said.

The interactive workshop is one of the tools that Ms Visser uses to break down barriers around repurposing discarded hair.

Ms Visser said: “I’m kind of wanting to normalise in a way that this material is a resource and not a waste. And as soon as we start seeing it more often, it becomes more accepted in our daily life. But I don’t want to normalise it in the sense that it becomes meaningless to people either. There is a value in reusing it and not throwing it away.”

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