Discover Why Willow Smith Shaved Her Head and Locked Herself in a Glass Box for 24 Hours
Before Willow Smith and Tyler Cole released their new album, The Anxiety, they locked themselves in a glass box for The Geffen Contemporary at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles for 24 hours as part of their exhibition, also called The Anxiety.
During The Anxiety exhibit, Smith and Cole acted out the eight stages of anxiety, some of them being that of rage, numbness, sadness, paranoia, and acceptance. The pair did not talk with one another but used shouts and grunts to express their emotions.
In 2018, Smith revealed that she struggled with self-harm as a consequence of her successful single, “Whip My Hair,” when she was only nine years old. As part of the exhibition, Cole shaved Smith’s head to express her inner turmoil, and as Smith later revealed in Red Table Talk, it marked her entrance into womanhood. The pair’s exhibit, The Anxiety, accurately demonstrates in a live form what crippling anxiety is capable of doing in someone’s head.
The exhibition was streamed live on Twitch, and the MOCA visitors could only watch Smith and Cole’s exhibit for 15 minutes each. After the MOCA exhibit had ended, only 24 hours later, Smith and Cole released their album, The Anxiety, featuring ten songs.
Be sure to check out Smith and Cole’s album, The Anxiety, and watch excerpts of their performance at MOCA because, during these difficult times, many of us feel anxious and can relate to everything that was happening in that glass box.
I am an incoming junior at the UCLA College of Letters and Science. Through my love and appreciation for literature, social justice, feminism, public speaking, and writing, I am planning on pursuing a career in immigration and public interest law. I want to help those who are either the victims of the system or discrimination because I wholeheartedly believe that the purpose of my life is to help others and take cases that nobody else is willing to take.
