‘Explore art with your heart’
VISUAL activist, humanitarian and photographer Zanele Muholi says she wants everyone to know that artists are just ordinary people. The uMlazi-born artist has under her belt exhib-itions at Tate Modern in London, Fotografiska in Stockholm, the Brooklyn Museum and Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.
Muholi identifies as non-binary and is immersed in the community, creating work from within that reflects struggles and resilience, but also increases visibility and a self-empowering sense of community.
Muholi first rose to prominence in the early 2000s with a series of photographs that sought to envision black lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, and intersex lives beyond deviance or victimhood.
The artist’s aesthetic choices are intuitive rather than premeditated, though inspirations seem to include the likes of Somnyama Ngonyama.
The personal edge Muholi brings to each artwork alters and enhances recognisable subject matter, cultivating an imaginative visual experience.
Muholi took her love for art into creating the BaMu Foundation in Umbumbulu with the aim to make art accessible to rural black children and offer young artists opportunities to explore their talent, express their feelings through it and explore art with their hearts.
The foundation was established in 2013 by Zanele Muholi and Dr Bajabulile La Dhlamini-Sidzumo, and it is invested in educational activism, community outreach and youth development.
In 2009, the foundation initiated Inkanyiso, a forum for queer and visual media.
In 2002, they co-founded the Forum for Empowerment of Women where they facilitate access to art spaces for youth practitioners through projects such as Ikhono LaseNatali, and continue to provide photography workshops for young women there and in the townships.
Muholi studied Advanced Photography at the Market Photo Workshop in Newtown, Johannesburg, and in 2009 completed an MFA: Documentary Media at Ryerson University, Toronto.
In 2013, she became an Honorary Professor at the University of the Arts/Hochschule für Künste Bremen. She exhibited in May at You Live
in Interesting Times, at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019, and produced a city-wide project titled Masihambisane on Visual Activism for Performa 17, New York, USA in 2017.
She featured in the inaugural exhibitions at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town.
Muholi won the 2019 Best Photography Book Award by the KrasznaKrausz Foundation for Somnyama Ngonyama: Hail, The Dark Lioness (Aperture), and was shortlisted for the 2015 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize for the publication Faces and Phases 2 (Steidl/The Walther
Collection).
Other publications include Zanele Muholi: African Women Photographers #1 (Casa Africa and La Fábrica) Faces and Phases, and Only Half the Picture.
A film of the opening of Muholi’s solo exhibit at Stevenson Gallery in Cape Town shows new directions in Zanele’s visual activism.
Muholi undoubtedly has the panache to shoot for the stars and the future of visual activism.