Zanele Muholi

Zanele Muholi, 2011 (cropped)

Zanele Muholi(born 19 July 1972) is a South African artist and visual activist working in photography, video, and installation. Muholi's work focuses on race, gender and sexuality with a body of work that dates back to the early 2000's, documenting and celebrating the lives of South Africa's Black lesbian, gay, transgender, and intersex communities. Muholi is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, explaining that "I'm just human."

Quotes

• I cannot give up myself and my soul simply because I need some exposure.
  • ^{[specific citation needed]}

• If I wait for someone else to validate my existence, it will mean that I’m shortchanging myself.

• Fine artists deal with finery, but I deal with painful material.

• It is personal issues that makes me do what I do, for I have been raped more than 50 times by just listening to what women who have confessed and confirmed their love for other women have been through.

• But the fact that we have one of the most advanced constitutions has had little impact on mindsets in townships. Members of our community are celebrating the constitution, but it is very different in the society.

• It is being both black and gay which is problematic.

• They should hold workshops on the constitution in all the townships - people are not aware of our rights and needs.

• At the time I was working for 'Behind the Mask' as a reporter, and I was really frustrated because I realized that there were no images of people like me. There were no real images of black lesbians. So I took it upon myself to make sure that we were present in historical documents in my country.

• How does being a photographer validate and remind me of my agenda? Instead of being someone who is just taking an image, I am also highlighting that such women are alive, live and love others and aspire to the same things heterosexual people aspire to while they have the capacity to contribute and actually do contribute to our society as a whole.

• I want people to understand our existence and presence, to say, 'we exist'. So that existence comes with a visibility that is positive.

• In my world, every human is beautiful.

• It started in 2006 and I dedicated it to a good friend of mine who died from HIV complications in 2007, at the age of twenty-five. I just realized that as black South Africans, especially lesbians, we don't have much visual history that speaks to pressing issues, both current and also in the past.

• I am re-writing a black, queer and trans visual history of South Africa for the world to know of our existence, resistance and persistence.

• I believe I cannot just use photography for fine art, it should go deeper. We should use whatever method is there to speak on anything that is unjust that happens in our spaces.

• I came on board as an artist who portrays black LGBTI people. So, my being here is more political than anything else. It basically means that if we do not see images of black LGBTI people as members of the community, that we need to bring forward the visuals of our people.

• People mustn't use education or academia to come up with a different form of colonising people, African people specifically. Some people regretted giving up their lives, their grandmothers' lives. Out of desperation, you give your soul away. No, I cannot give up myself and my soul simply because I need some exposure.

External links

• Official website: www.zanelemuholi.com
• a gallery of photographs in The Guardian
• in The Museum of Modern Art