Zanele Muholi: Rewriting Black Queer Visual History

Zanele Muholi, born in 1972, is a South African visual activist and - according to Tate Modern - one of the most acclaimed photographers today. Muholi has been documenting black queer people's lives in South Africa for many years. Their mission is "to re-write a black queer and trans visual history of South Africa for the world to know of our resistance and existence at the height of hate crimes in SA and beyond" and creating a positive imagery to defeat stigma and negativity attached to queer identity in the South African context (via).

"The black body itself is the material. The black body that is ever scrutinised, and violated and undermined."

Zanele Muholi

Muholi photographs themself to emphatise with other queer people. "This is to say, ‘I am one of us,’. I’m not just taking photos for fine arts—I’m producing content that speaks to South African visual history and a group of people who, simply because of how they express themselves, won’t be counted in history. That includes me, so I’m working on content that’s produced by us for us about us—not dependent on other so-called experts." (via)

Muholi has produced a number of photographic series investigating the severe disconnect that exists in post-apartheid South Africa between the equality promoted by its 1996 Constitution and the ongoing bigotry toward and violent acts targeting individuals within the LGBTQ community. As an ensemble, Muholi’s images display the depth and diversity of this group in South Africa and in various countries that the artist has visited. With a profound commitment to redressing the social injustices faced by LGBTQ people, Muholi embraces a subjective perspective in their practice by forming relationships with the individuals they depict, including the women in Only Half the Picture (2003–06), the transgender or gay men in Beulahs (2006–10), and the couples in Being (2007). (via)

(above) In this tribute to her mother, a domestic worker, Muholi created a familiar image of exoticised Africa from laundry pegs. (literally via)

"I was thinking as you cross borders, the racial profiling that happens … When you’ve been through that process, you feel like trash. You wonder why this always happens to people like us."

Zanele Muholi

"My art is political. It’s not for show, it’s not for play."

Zanele Muholi

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