Role Photographer | Name Zanele Muholi Known for Photography | |
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Movies Difficult Love, Enraged By A Picture, films4peace 2013: Zanele Muholi Parents Bester Muholi, Ashwell Tanji Banda Muholi Similar People David Goldblatt, Pieter Hugo, Santu Mofokeng, Mikhael Subotzky, Nandipha Mntambo | ||
Zanele muholi visual activist
Zanele Muholi (born 19 July 1972) is a South African artist and visual activist working in photography, video and installation.
Contents
- Zanele muholi visual activist
- Artist talk zanele muholi with lebo mashifane
- Early life
- Career
- Books
- Solo exhibitions
- Selected group exhibition
- Awards
- References
Artist talk zanele muholi with lebo mashifane
Early life
Zanele Muholi was born on 19 July 1972 in Umlazi, Durban, to Ashwell Tanji Banda Muholi and Bester Muholi and she is the youngest of five children. She completed an Advanced Photography course at the Market Photo Workshop in Newtown, Johannesburg in 2003, and held her first solo exhibition at the Johannesburg Art Gallery in 2004. In 2009 she was awarded her Master of Fine Arts degree in Documentary Media from Ryerson University in Toronto. Her thesis mapped the visual history of black lesbian identity and politics in post-Apartheid South Africa.
Career
Muholi is a visual activist dedicated to increasing the visibility of black lesbian, gay, transgender, and intersex people. Through her artistic approach she hopes to document the journey of the African queer community as a record for future generations. She tries to capture the moment without negativity or focusing on the prevalent violence, portraying the LGBTQI community as individuals and as a whole to encourage unity.
Muholi was employed as a photographer and reporter for Behind the Mask, an online magazine on LGBTI issues in Africa. In 2002, she co-founded the Forum for the Empowerment of Women (FEW), a black lesbian organization dedicated to providing a safe space for women to meet and organize. She researched and documented the stories of hate crimes against the gay community in order to bring forth the realities of “corrective rape”, assault, and HIV/AIDS, to public attention.
Muholi launched her visual activism through her first solo exhibition entitled Visual Sexuality: Only Half the Picture, at the Johannesburg Art Gallery in 2004. Her work is mostly about bringing visibility of queers in the black community.
In 2009, Muholi founded Inkanyiso, a non-profit organisation concerned with visual activism. It is involved with visual arts and media advocacy for and on behalf of the LGBTI community. The organisation’s vision statement is "Produce. Educate. Disseminate."
In August 2009, Minister of Arts and Culture, Lulu Xingwana walked out of an exhibition that featured Muholi’s photography, calling it immoral, offensive and going against nation-building. In her response Muholi said "It's paralysing. I expected people to think before they act, and to ask questions. I wanted to create dialogue"
On 20 April 2012, Muholi's flat in Vredehoek was robbed, with over twenty primary and back-up external hard drives containing five years' worth of photos and video being stolen with her laptop. Photos contained therein include records of the funerals of three Black South African lesbians murdered in hate crimes. Nothing else was stolen, raising suspicions that Muholi's recordings of Black lesbian life was targeted. Muholi was overseas at the time of the robbery.
In 2010, Muholi co-directed her documentary Difficult Love, which was commissioned by SABC. It has shown in South Africa, USA, Spain, Sweden, UK, Amsterdam, Paris (Festival Cinefable) and Italy.
On the 28 October 2013, she was appointed Honorary Professor - video and photography at the University of the Arts Bremen in Germany.
In 2014, she presented at the Design Indaba Conference in Cape Town.
In June 2014, Muholi was back at her alma mater, showing Faces and Phases at the Ryerson Image Centre as part of WorldPride. In the same month she showed at the Singapore International Arts Festival's O.P.E.N. where she also spoke on legacies of violence.
In 2015, Muholi presented Isibonelo/Evidence in a solo show at the Brooklyn Museum. The show included eighty-seven works.
Muholi was a speaker at WorldPride Madrid Summit 2017. She shared chair with Federico Mayor Zaragoza, Myrna Cunningham and Gopi Shankar Madurai for the Madrid Summit Declaration.
In July 2017, a collaborator of Muholi's, Sibahle Nkumbi, was pushed down a staircase in Amsterdam by her Airbnb host while visiting the Netherlands to cover the opening of Muholi's exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum. Nkumbi was hospitalised, sustaining a concussion and substantial bruising. Video footage of the confrontation subsequently went viral, and the host was charged with attempted manslaughter.
Books
Solo exhibitions
Selected group exhibition
2017: Art/Afrique] Fondation Luis Vuitton, Paris