zanele muholi - somnyama ngonyama
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Somnyama NgonyamaZanele Muholi
Somnyama NgonyamaZanele Muholi
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With the series Somnyama Ngonyama, I have decided to turn the
camera on myself. In contrast to my life-long project of documenting
members of my black LGBTI community in South Africa and beyond,
one in which I normally have the privilege of witnessing participants’
presentation of themselves according to their own self-image, with this
new work I have created portraits in which I am both participant
and image-maker.
Somnyama Ngonyama (meaning ‘Hail, the Dark Lioness’) is an
unflinchingly personal approach I have taken as a visual activist to
confronting the politics of race and pigment in the photographic
archive. It is a statement of self-presentation through portraiture. The
entire series also relates to the concept of MaID (‘My Identity’) or, read
differently, ‘maid’, the quotidian and demeaning name given to all
subservient black women in South Africa.
‘I can afford to look at myself directly, risk the pain of experiencing who I am not, and
learn to savor the sweetness of who I am.’Audre Lorde, ‘Eye to Eye: Black Women, Hatred, and Anger’,
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
SOMNYAMA NGONYAMA
ZANELE MUHOLI
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Experimenting with different characters and archetypes, I have
portrayed myself in highly stylised fashion using the performative and
expressive language of theatre. The black face and its details become
the focal point, forcing the viewer to question their desire to gaze
at images of my black figure.
The visual variety depicted in the series references the histories of
black and white fashion photography and of black and white portraiture.
Each and every photo captured in this series is a commentary on a
specific event in South Africa’s political history, from the advent of the
mining industry, to the fame or infamy of the ‘Black Madonna’, to the
recent massacre of miners at Marikana; from family to society
and back again.
By exaggerating the darkness of my skin tone, I’m reclaiming my
blackness, which I feel is continuously performed by the privileged
other. My reality is that I do not mimic being black; it is my skin, and
the experience of being black is deeply entrenched in me. Just like our
ancestors, we live as black people 365 days a year, and we should speak
without fear. As Audre Lorde so eloquently put it in her poem,
‘A Litany for Survival’:
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid
So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive
— Audre Lorde, The Black Unicorn: Poems
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One of the realities that I face as a South African visual activist is being
forced to make a living outside this country. For a project to be well-
executed I have to live on the road where most of the work in this series
was produced – dashing from New York to Florence to Nottingham,
then to Oslo and Liverpool, back home for a week in Johannesburg,
and then off to Ann Arbor, Detroit and New York – as was the case over
the past three months. This shuttling around sometimes make me feel
disoriented, disconnected and almost homeless. The culturally dominant
images of black women start to infiltrate my soul and function as a
constant reminder that such images still inform how black women are
perceived here and now. One way that I deal with this exoticised self/
other is to exorcise those images through my photography.
These self-portraits have been captured in different continents:
America, Africa and Europe; in the cities of Amsterdam, Charlottesville,
Oslo, Umbria, Syracuse, New York, Malmo, Gothenburg, Johannesburg,
Paris, Durban, London, Mayotte, Florence and Gaborone. My aim is to
mark memories and connections I made with those places and through
my interactions with people there. I created materials and used found
objects that expressed my moods. All the materials utilised in the
portraits have their own primary functions. I focused on senses such
as hands touching and eyes penetrating (unsettling eye contact)
while producing the work.
In Somnyama Ngonyama, I have embarked on a discomforting self-
defining journey, rethinking the culture of the selfie, self-representation
and self-expression. I have investigated how photographers can
question and deal with the body as material or mix it with objects to
further aestheticise black personhood. My abiding concern is, can
photographers look at themselves and question who they are in
society and the position/s that they hold, and maintain these
roles thereafter?
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Bester I, Mayotte, 2015
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Previous spread
Somandla, Parktown, 2014
Opposite
Vukani II, Paris, 2014
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Thulani II, Parktown, 2015
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MaID, Brooklyn, New York, 2015
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Zibuyile I, Syracuse, 2015
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Zandile, Umbria, 2012
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Thembeka I, New York Upstate, 2015
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Muholi Muholi, Amsterdam, 2014
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Somnyama I, Paris, 2014
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Bester II, Paris, 2014
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Inkanyiso I, Paris, 2014
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Somnyama III, Paris, 2014
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Zodwa I, Amsterdam, 2015
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Ntomb’zane Mayotte, 2015
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Somnyama Ngonyama II, Oslo, 2015
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Previous spread left
Hlengiwe, Paris, 2014
Previous spread right
Thembitshe, Parktown, 2014
Opposite
Bona, Charlottesville, 2015
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Mfana, London, 2014
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Bester IV, Mayotte, 2015
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Zodwa, Paris, 2014
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Musa, London, 2015
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MaID I, Syracuse, 2015
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MaID IV, Syracuse, 2015
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Ntombizane I, New York City, 2015
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Ndivile II, Malmo, 2014
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Somnyama IV, Oslo, 2015
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Zibuyile, Parktown, 2014
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Babhekile II, Oslo, 2015
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Thembeka II, London, 2014
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68Ntombi I, Paris, 2014
Ntombi II, Paris, 2014
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Thulani I, Paris, 2014
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Vukani I, Paris, 2014
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Bester V, Mayotte, 2015
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Tribute to Brenda Fassie, Cape Town, 2012
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Phindile I, Paris, 2014
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Selected self-portraits 2005-14
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Isibuko I, 2005
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Not butch, but my legs are, 2005
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Self, 2005
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Status unknown, 2005
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Untitled, 2006
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Untitled, 2006
Miss Lesbian I, Amsterdam, 2009
Miss Lesbian V, Amsterdam, 2009
Miss Lesbian III, Amsterdam, 2009
Miss Lesbian VII, Amsterdam, 2009
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Zanele Muholi, Vredehoek, Cape Town, 2012
From the Faces and Phases series
ZaVa, Amsterdam, 2014
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Visual activist Zanele Muholi was born in 1972 in Umlazi township
in Durban, South Africa; she lives in Johannesburg.
Prior to her photographic journeys into black female sexualities and
genders in Africa, she worked as a human/lesbian rights activist, raising
the many issues facing black lesbian women in South Africa. She
worked as a reporter and photographer for Behind the Mask, an LGBTI
website, and in 2002 she co-founded the Forum for the Empowerment
of Women (FEW), a black lesbian organisation based in Gauteng,
dedicated to providing a safe space for women loving women to meet
and organise. In 2009 she founded Inkanyiso, an organisation that
deals with visual arts, activism, media and advocacy.
Muholi completed an advanced photography course at the Market Photo
Workshop in Newtown, Johannesburg, in 2003, and held her first solo
exhibition at the Johannesburg Art Gallery in 2004. She graduated
from Ryerson University in Toronto with an MFA: Documentary Media
in 2009, her thesis mapping the visual history of black lesbian identity
and politics in post-apartheid South Africa. She has won a number of
prestigious awards for her work including a Jean-Paul Blachère award
and the Casa Africa award for best female photographer living in Africa
at the 2009 Rencontres de Bamako African Photography Biennial; the
Index on Censorship – Freedom of Expression arts award (2013); the
Fine Prize for an emerging artist at the 2013 Carnegie International;
and a Prince Claus Award (2013).
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Muholi’s work has featured on important exhibitions including the
55th Venice Biennale, Documenta 13, the 29th São Paulo Biennial, Les
Rencontres d’Arles, France, and Les Rencontres de Bamako, Mali, and at
institutions including the V&A Museum, London; San Francisco Museum
of Modern Art; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Huis Marseille, Amsterdam;
Schwules Museum, Berlin; Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg; the Walther
Collection, Ulm; Menil Collection, Houston; and Fondazione Cassa di
Risparmio di Modena, Italy.
Four books have been published on her work: Faces and Phases 2006-14
(Steidl and The Walther Collection, 2014); Zanele Muholi: African Women
Photographers #1 (Casa Africa/La Fábrica, 2011); Faces and Phases
(Prestel, 2010); Only Half the Picture (Stevenson, 2006). Her award-
winning documentary Difficult Love (2010) has shown at film festivals
around the world.
Artist’s aknowledgmentsEllen Eisenman, Lerato Dumse and Valérie Thomas
© 2015 for works by Zanele Muholi, the artist
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