BBC – Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness

Video (2:32): South African visual activist Zanele Muholi has gained global recognition with her pioneering portraits of South Africa’s LGBTQI communities. This is an interview done during her first solo exhibition in London which launched in July 2017. The series, called Somnyama Ngonyama is Zulu for Hail, the Dark Lioness. In 2018 Aperture compiled the series into a monograph with the title Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness.

About Zanele Muholi

‘Zanele Muholi (born in Umlazi, Durban, South Africa, 1972) is a visual activist and photographer, cofounder of the Forum for the Empowerment of Women, and founder of Inkanyiso, a forum for queer and visual media. Muholi has won numerous awards for their work, including the ICP Infinity Award for Documentary and Photojournalism (2016); the Fine Prize for an emerging artist at the 2013 Carnegie International; a Prince Claus Award (2013); and both the Casa África award for best female photographer and a Fondation Blachère award at Les Rencontres de Bamako biennial of African photography (2009). Their Faces and Phases series was shown at dOCUMENTA (13) and the 55th Venice Biennale and was shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize in 2015. Muholi is an honorary professor at the University of the Arts Bremen, Germany. They are represented by Stevenson Gallery, Johannesburg, and Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York.’ – Aperture/Amazon.com

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Related Links

Quotidian Objects Enrich Striking Black and White Self-Portraits in a New Monograph by Zanele Muholi Review by
Kate Sierzputowski (April 29, 2019)
New Book – ‘Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness’