Writes Harris: "SPLASH began as an experimental documentary about a black woman, hair and conventions of beauty and desire. As I began to delve deeper into the project and immersed myself in the works of Isaac Julien, Marlon Riggs, bell hooks, Stuart Hall, Toni Morrison, and Alice Miller, as well as my brother Lyle Ashton Harris, I began to understand that my own ambivalence around issues of ethnicity, gender, representation, and desire, issues I was exploring indirectly through this black woman."