Known for their work in documenting and bringing visibility to the lives of South Africa's LGBTQ+ community, Zanele Muholi works tirelessly to put the focus on queer lives and issues in South Africa.
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00:00 (dramatic music)
00:02 (shouting)
00:05 - Visual activist, Sonnele Mhoholi,
00:08 works tirelessly to put focus on queer lives
00:11 and issues in South Africa and the world.
00:13 - As queer people, as queer women,
00:16 or as female beings, we're often overlooked.
00:18 (dramatic music)
00:21 - Faces and Phases is a living archive
00:24 of queer people in various expressions
00:26 of their sexuality and gender identity.
00:29 - The first portrait that I took of them was in 2010,
00:33 when they won Miss Lesbian,
00:37 and then became the first prince.
00:40 I took it upon myself to ensure not only
00:44 that we should be or we present as dead bodies,
00:49 as hate crime survivors, as displaced beings.
00:54 I just wanted to make sure that people feel us,
00:59 they see us, respect us.
01:02 I'm speaking as an African in this space.
01:07 It's not to be famous, but to lay a foundation
01:10 for many who will come after me.
01:12 From the breast to the blankets, to the vagina,
01:18 to the glitterous, to the womb, this is personal.
01:23 (upbeat music)
01:27 - Muholi's move to the Southern Guild Gallery in Cape Town
01:29 begins with their largest presentation of bronze sculptures.
01:33 It's a personal reckoning with themes of sexual pleasure,
01:38 freedom, and inherited taboos around female genitalia
01:41 and biology following their struggle with fibroids.
01:44 - I met the most interesting period of my life,
01:48 where there are no reservations.
01:51 I live with my body, I live with myself.
01:53 I love a woman.
01:56 We have to do like annual checkups
01:57 because the body changes.
02:00 The uterus then becomes a dangerous thing.
02:03 I want us to be able to make choices with our bodies.
02:08 Let's create safe spaces for all, you know?
02:11 Let women, you know, be free to speak about
02:15 how sexually liberated they can become.
02:18 And also, we're identifying females for trans women.
02:21 This is their space too.
02:23 And that space shouldn't be only a pride.
02:26 (gentle music)
02:28 - Femicide and hate crimes have been central themes
02:31 in Muholi's activism for more than two decades.
02:34 - Speaking from South Africa,
02:36 where we buried a lot of young black lesbians
02:40 who weren't even 25 or 30,
02:42 where the statistics is unknown
02:44 because there's just too much brutality.
02:48 - For me, I see art spaces as classrooms
02:54 in which we educate the non-converted.
02:58 There's a place called Wachina in KwaZulu-Natal.
03:02 There have been a number of black women found,
03:05 killed in different spaces.
03:07 I just read an article of these two young beautiful bodies.
03:10 It's the aunt and the niece
03:12 who were found on top of each other.
03:14 And the case really moved me.
03:16 So I guess that the peace goes to many dismembered bodies
03:20 of women in this country.
03:22 And there's never anyone held responsible.
03:25 - Sculpture provides another medium for Muholi
03:31 to amplify their activism.
03:33 - People understand monuments better,
03:37 but then also the sculptures are from photography.
03:40 It is a 3D camera that's been used to shoot this
03:44 in order for it to become this solid.
03:46 So it's more about visibility,
03:48 but photography will always be my first love.
03:51 (upbeat music)
03:54 - Beyond the selection of retrospective images,
03:56 Muholi features new portraits
03:58 from the iconic Somnyama Ngonyama series,
04:00 meaning Hail the Dark Lioness,
04:03 that they began in 2012.
04:05 - It's the way in which I'm singing praises
04:07 to those that birthed me.
04:10 Somnyama is the dark lioness.
04:13 Ngonyama is my mother's clan name.
04:15 Her spirit keeps on shining, you know,
04:19 and helped me to strive in many ways.
04:22 I shoot mainly in black and white
04:24 and increase the contrast post-production
04:26 and speaking on many layers concerning race
04:30 and black bodies being continuously racial profiled.
04:35 And I use my own body as I produce all these images
04:39 to emphasize the beautiful black body
04:42 that compels you to question, how do you look at me?
04:46 What is it that you even understand about,
04:50 you know, the complex self that I bring forth?
04:52 - Muholi uses everyday items as culturally loaded props
04:58 to challenge conventions of fashion photography
05:00 and servitude.
05:01 - They're really beautiful.
05:03 That's the whole point.
05:04 'Cause oftentimes black people have been caricatures
05:09 from the former visual anthropologist.
05:14 They've been degrading the black body.
05:17 How we have been seen,
05:18 how we should be projected as poor bodies.
05:22 You don't need to have mucus and saliva
05:26 hanging on people's faces to make a point.
05:29 All that I'm doing is undo that image
05:32 to claim, you know, our voices
05:34 and do this documentation for ourselves.
05:38 So whoever that looks at us as black queer bodies
05:43 will take note of our existence.
05:46 - South Africa has a constitution that protects all people,
05:51 yet stigma, exclusion and hostility are still common
05:55 for many who are openly gay or transgender.
05:58 And in many other parts of the continent,
06:00 the reality is even worse.
06:02 - There are places where I cannot show my work.
06:05 I mean, in most African countries where, you know,
06:07 being trans is outlawed, where homosexuality is illegal.
06:11 So we still have a lot of work to do,
06:14 but presence is key.
06:18 Hence these ongoing projects matter to me.
06:22 - Providing scholarships, residencies
06:24 and education programs,
06:26 the Muholi Art Institute is a nurturing incubation space
06:29 for young creatives.
06:31 - And I think that with many new conversations,
06:35 connections and collaborations,
06:37 life will be much better than today.
06:40 [MUSIC PLAYING]
06:43 (upbeat music)