Zanele Muholi

Description

Zanele Muholi was born in Umlazi, Durban, and currently lives in Johannesburg, South Africa. She co-founded the Forum for Empowerment of Women as well as Inkanyiso, a forum for queer and visual activist media. Muholi’s self-proclaimed 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.” This striking and intimate portrait of her long-time collaborator Lerato Dumse was made during her Light Work residency. Muholi studied at the Market Photo Workshop in Newtown, Johannesburg, and completed an MFA at Ryerson University, Toronto, in 2009. She has won numerous awards including the Ryerson Alumni Achievement Award; a Prince Claus Award; and the Casa Africa award for best female photographer. Her Faces and Phases series has been shown at Documenta 13, the South African Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, the São Paulo Biennale, Brooklyn Museum, among other venues. She was shortlisted for the 2015 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize for her publication Faces and Phases: 2006-14 (Steidl/The Walther Collection, 2014). Muholi participated in Light Work’s Artist-in-Residence Program in August 2015.