The Collection

Zanele Muholi is a photographer, filmmaker, and self-described visual activist whose work powerfully confronts issues of race, gender, and sexuality. Since the early 2000s, Muholi has created a landmark body of work documenting and celebrating Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex communities in South Africa—communities often erased or subjected to violence in public life. Their practice spans photography, video, and installation, and is rooted in advocacy and visibility.

Muholi first gained prominence with series such as Faces and Phases (2006–ongoing), a monumental archive of Black lesbian and trans individuals across South Africa and beyond. These portraits, dignified and defiant, serve as both personal testimony and collective history. In their acclaimed self-portrait series Somnyama Ngonyama (“Hail the Dark Lioness”), Muholi stages themselves in striking black-and-white images that confront colonial legacies, labor histories, and global structures of racism, while reclaiming the Black body as a site of resilience and power.

Beyond their art practice, Muholi has been a central figure in activism: they co-founded the Forum for the Empowerment of Women (FEW) in 2002, a group supporting Black lesbians, and worked with numerous grassroots organizations to address hate crimes, HIV/AIDS, and gender-based violence. They studied at the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg, founded by David Goldblatt, and earned an MFA in Documentary Media from Ryerson University, Toronto, in 2009.

Muholi has exhibited widely, with retrospectives at Tate Modern (London, 2020–21), Maison Européenne de la Photographie (Paris, 2023), and MUDEC (Milan, 2023). Their work is included in major collections including the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Art Institute of Chicago, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam). Honors include the Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography (2016), Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2016), and an Honorary Fellowship from the Royal Photographic Society (2018).