South African photographer (and self-titled visual activist) Zanele Muholi has gained international recognition for her direct, powerful imagery. Muholi devoted years to a body of work called Faces and Phases (2006-2016), in which she directed her camera towards members of the black lesbian and trans community in South Africa. Muholi has exposed herself to innumerable acts of aggression and violence during the course of her career. Despite this, she continues to pursue her work, in part to insist on a visual history and visibility for members of her long-overlooked community.

Earlier this year, the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center (PPAC) introduced the The Women’s Mobile Museum – a year-long residency and apprenticeship program led by internationally renowned South African artist-activist Zanele Muholi in her first major US-based project: a collaboration with ten (10) women artists of different ages, ethnicities and socio-economic backgrounds. Beginning in September 2018, the artists and Muholi took their finished projects on the road in a six-month traveling exhibition that challenges social and economic barriers of the traditional art world and asks the question: Who is art for?

Through self-portraits, Zanele Muholi reimagines black identity and challenges the oppressive standards of beauty that often ignore people of color.

Visual activist photographer Zanele Muholi has her first solo exhibition opening this month at the East London gallery Autograph ABP. For more than a decade, she has focused on documenting black LGTBQI people in South Africa. Her ongoing portrait series Somnyama Ngonyama was inspired by her experiences on the road and the socio-political events she encountered along the way. Using her body as a canvas, her psychologically driven portraits confront the politics of race and representation.