Zanele Muholi (born 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 2000s, 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".
Muholi has described themselves as a visual activist as opposed to an artist.Raél Jero Salley. African Arts. Los Angeles: Winter 2012. Vol. 45, Iss. 4; pg. 58, 12 pgs They are dedicated to increasing the visibility of black lesbian, gay, transgender, and intersex people. They researched and documented the stories of hate crimes against the LGBTQI community in order to bring forth the realities of "corrective rape," assault, and HIV/AIDS, to public attention.
Muholi was shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize in 2015. They received an Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography in 2016, a Chevalier de Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2016, an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society in 2018 and the 46th Hasselblad Award in 2026.
Muholi had a retrospective exhibition on at Maison européenne de la photographie in Paris from 1 February to 25 May 2023. Their work was also shown that year at Mudec-Museo delle Culture in Milan, from 31 March through 30 July 2023, showcasing 60 self-portraits in black and white chosen especially for Mudec.
Early life and education Zanele Muholi was born and raised in Umlazi, Durban, KwaZulu-Natal. Their father was Ashwell Tanji Banda Muholi and their mother was Bester Muholi. They are the youngest of eight children. Muholi's father died shortly after their birth, and their mother was a domestic worker who had to leave her children to work for a white family during apartheid in South Africa. Muholi was raised by an extended family.
Muholi completed an Advanced Photography course at the Market Photo Workshop in Newtown, Johannesburg in 2003, and held their first solo exhibition at the Johannesburg Art Gallery in 2004. In 2009, they were awarded their Master of Fine Arts degree in Documentary Media from Toronto Metropolitan University, formerly known as Ryerson University, in Toronto, Canada. Their thesis mapped the visual history of black lesbian identity and politics in post-Apartheid South Africa.
On 28 October 2013, they were appointed Honorary Professor – video and photography at the University of the Arts Bremen in Germany.
Photography
Muholi's photography has been compared to the way W.E.B. DuBois subverted the typical representations of African Americans. Both Muholi and Du Bois have created an archive of photos, working to dismantle dominant, pre-existing perceptions of the subjects they chose to photograph. Muholi views their work as collaborative, referring to the individuals they photograph as "participants" rather than as subjects. With the term "participants" Muholi allows their participants to collaborate on poses instead of Muholi placing them in positions. Seeking to empower their subjects, Muholi often invites participants to speak at events and exhibitions, adding the participant's voice to the conversation. Through their artistic approach they hope to document the journey of the African queer community as a record for future generations. They try 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.van der Vlies, Andrew. "Queer Knowledge And The Politics Of The Gaze In Contemporary South African Photography: Zanele Muholi And Others." Journal of African Cultural Studies 24.2 (2012): 140–156. Academic Search Complete. Web. 14 May 2015.Makhubu, Nomusa M. "Violence and the cultural logics of pain: representations of sexuality in the work of Nicholas Hlobo and Zanele Muholi." Critical Arts 26.4 (2012): 504+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 14 May 2015. Thus, their work can be considered documentative, recording the overall community LGBTI of South Africa and their challenges, and at times, more specifically the struggle of black lesbians. Before 1994, black lesbian voices were largely excluded from the making of a formal queer movement. Muholi's efforts of creating a more positive visualization of LGBTI Africans combats the homophobic-motivated violence that is prevalent in South Africa today, especially in the case of black lesbians. While black women's bodies appear frequently throughout sexualized pop-culture, black lesbians are viewed (through the lens of the patriarchy and heteronormativity) as undesirable. This negative view of homosexuals in Africa lead to violence, such as murder and rape, and rejection from their families. Muholi's Zukiswa (2010), shows an African lesbian woman making eye contact with the viewer, displaying an unwavering gaze of confidence, self-awareness, and determination. This example encourages awareness, acceptance, and positivity with the queer community as well as South Africa.
Although Muholi became known as a photographer who engaged with the then-invisible lives of black lesbians in South Africa, they began to recognize this idea of "gender within gender." In 2003, and their sense of community definitively began to include trans people. Muholi was employed as a photographer and reporter for Behind the Mask, an online magazine on LGBTI issues in Africa.
Muholi first received global attention from the art world in 2012 at Documenta, a world-famous exhibition of modern and contemporary art in (Germany), for a series of portraits of lesbians and transgender participants titled: Faces and Phases. The photos were also exhibited at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
Visual Sexuality: Only Half the Picture (2004) Muholi launched their first solo exhibition, entitled Visual Sexuality: Only Half the Picture, at the Johannesburg Art Gallery in 2004. This exhibition featured photographs of survivors of rape and hate crimes as well as an image of a rape and an assault case number. The artist explicitly captured the images as to not reveal the person's gender, and the people in the images remain anonymous. Their work is mostly about bringing visibility to queer people in the black community.
Faces and Phases (2006–ongoing) In 2006, Muholi began their Faces and Phases project, a series of around three hundred portraits of lesbians, shot in front of plain or patterned backgrounds. The project began in 2006 when Muholi photographed activist and friend Busi Sigasa. Sigasa is a survivor of corrective rape and contracted HIV from the attack. Muholi's concern for their participant's safety dictated that all pictured individuals be of age and fully out. Faces and Phases mocks the "art-in-service-to-science" narrative engrained in colonial images. 18th century botany imagery shows various plants plucked from their natural environment therefore erasing any social or cultural context. This practice emphasizes Western discovery of an object without acknowledging its longstanding existence. According to Susan Kart at Grove Art Online, this project "documents victims of sexual assault and hate crimes, the wedding images share moments of victory, acceptance, and joy for LGBTI families." In Faces and Phases, Muholi utilizes this history and compares it to the representation of LGBTI in South Africa. Black queer individuals have increased dramatically in national representation but this is still an erasure of important context. These individuals are represented in the same way as the botanical prints. There is increased visibility for Western consumption but no attention is paid to the suffering and systematic oppression these individuals face in post-apartheid South Africa. Muholi challenges this in their series by providing names, dates, locations, and representing the participants within a public sphere.
In June 2014, Muholi was back at their alma mater, showing Faces and Phases at the Ryerson Image Centre as part of WorldPride. In the same month they showed at the Singapore International Arts Festival's O.P.E.N. where they also spoke on legacies of violence.
Innovative Women (2009) In 2009, the Innovative Women exhibition was shown in South Africa in the cities of Durban and Cape Town. It was curated by painter Bongi Bhengu and features their work as well as 9 other artists including Muholi and photographer Nandipha Mntambo. In August 2009, the Minister of Arts and Culture Lulu Xingwana walked out of the exhibition due to Muholi's photography, calling it immoral, offensive and going against nation-building. In their response Muholi said "It's paralysing. I expected people to think before they act, and to ask questions. I wanted to create dialogue."
Transfigures (2010–2011) Their Transfigures project (2010–2011) embraces lesbian and trans life. The portraits are taken in urban and rural settings in South Africa and internationally. Muholi’s artworks express a sense of intimacy that also gives a sense of the tragedies that can occur to the photo subjects. Muholi’s works document queer individuals as they exist in Africa and the different forms they take throughout their lives, particularly lesbian and transgender individuals.
Of Love & Loss (2014) Muholi's 2014 exhibition, Of Love & Loss, focused on the violence and hate crimes experienced by members of the LGBTQIA communities in South Africa. Juxtaposing images of weddings and funerals, the show included photographs, video works and installation elements. An element of autobiography featured images of Muholi and their partner. This exhibition furthermore exemplifies why Muholi calls themself a visual activist rather than an artist and it shows their battle scars. They bring these harsh issues into light with such powerful contrast, as a way to show resistance. Muholi calls this as just one of their many responsibilities, and these harsh and cruel realities cannot be ignored.
Brave Beauties (2014-present) A series focusing on capturing the portraits of trans women, Brave Beauties was shot outside the studio and on location throughout South Africa. This "mobile studio" was a further expression of Muholi's celebration of LGBTQIA visibility as equal citizens of their country, an embrace of artistic freedom and a gesture of rejecting the limitations that studios can present. While on show at the Stevenson Gallery in Cape Town, an "activist wall" encouraged the participants to write directly on the gallery walls about their experiences, stories and vision. A gesture of destabilization, the activist wall was another expression of Muholi's desire to empower the participants in their work.
In 2026, Muholi presented 100+ photographic portraits in a solo exhibition titled Beleza Valente [Brave Beauties] at the Museu de Arte do Rio. The exhibition represents two decades of Muholi's work celebrating Black LGBTQIAPN+ visibility, resilience, and self-representation.
Isibonelo/Evidence (2015) In 2015, Muholi presented 87 works in their solo Isibonelo/Evidence at the Brooklyn Museum. The meaning of the show's title, in which "Isibonelo" roughly translates from Zulu to "evidence," referred to its contents, which were split into three main sections separated on three walls. The first featured a decade-long chronology of hate crimes in South Africa, and faced the second, which was covered in handwritten messages from members of the LGBTQIA communities. The third and final wall consisted of portraits, including one of Muholi themself.
Somnyama Ngonyama ("Hail the Dark Lioness") (2012–present)