The use of photography in disenfranchised communities grasps at disparate sentiments from western practices of landscape and portraiture photography. This is evidenced in the first modes of photography, the daguerreotypes, which analyses the physical differences between African descendants, and white Europeans. In this light, photography can be perceived as a colonial space, where black bodies were used for white science to determine the superiority of the white race by extrapolating on biological differences. This mode of photography essentialised the black race as a separate species, further lending a hand in the oppression of black bodies under the guise of supposed superiority. The lifespan of the daguerreotypes influenced the common thought that black bodies were void of consciousness, rendering their vitality to a two dimensional façade, thus causing disproportionate measures of inferiority.
The concept of the daguerreotypes aided in contextualising the black experience, causing an uproar of contemporary photography to move away from this ideal. Through the practice of transgender artist Zanele Muholi, a marginal difference that is separate from colonial photography is presented. These manifest as an intimate and vulnerable recount of event that unfold in the contemporary South African landscape. Muholi was born in Umlazi, Durban 1972, and currently lives in Johannesburg. As a community officer for a black lesbian organisation that they co-founded (Empowerment of Women), Muholi uses photography as a means to record the history – contemporarily and retrospectively – of black LGBTQI communities. Entering Muholi’s visual diary reads as a form of recognising the sharp disparities and inequities experienced by disenfranchised groups of particularly black lesbians, with the means to reclaim this space. However, Muholi’s practice reads further than a simple documentary collection of images that depict survivors in parts of South Africa. Although their collection mirrors an autobiographical approach in an archival manner, they further communicate the sense of ‘becoming’ by depicting the same subject within different images to signify their vocation beyond singular events. By using the means of portraiture photography, and specifically shooting in black and white, Muholi is able to imitate the appearance of the daguerreotypes as a way to re-navigate the idea that portraiture photography serves a two dimensional physiognomic approach; to highlight superiority and inferiority. This is emblematic of Muholi’s aim to adjust the narrative of the black body, thus symbolically liberating it through visual activism that reclaims a previous colonial space.
At the forefront of this discussion, and being the most vulnerable in these communities, are black lesbians. Being at the highest risk of hate crimes, like corrective rape, black lesbian face the overarching fear of an unknown lifespan, even around the time where the same sex civil unions were legalised (2006 in South Africa), and the LGBTQI equal rights proclamation in South Africa’s 1996 pose-apartheid. Muholi highlights that whilst these dates exist, the backbone of hate crimes against the ‘other’ is still prevails upon this region, even increasingly occurring as a direct response to this political mode of acceptance. Their work comes near unprecedented, as there remain a minimum of activist who visually discuss hate crimes against black lesbians, yet another testament to the fear of living as a black lesbian woman.
Much of Muholi’s practice centres around the de stigmatising queerness, so recurring in many of their collections are themes of vulnerability and intimacy, to explore the tenderness experienced in the LGBTQI community. Along with intimacy, a sense of mourning is prevalent in these collections, particularly in Hate Crime Survivor II, 2004, and Hate Crime Survivor II, 2004, as a part of their collection Only Half the Picture (2004). These photographs synergise the subject and the subject matter of hate crimes – akin to corrective rape – to communicate mourning through victim’s past, present and what this means for their future, perhaps taking an ontological approach. Muholi photographs a subject more than one, as evidenced in Hate Crime Survivor II and II, as a means to offer the viewer an eye on the inside. As viewers, we appear slightly voyeuristic side, yet it is Muholi’s intent to hold the viewer accountable, by shooting in close vicinity of the survivor. By photographing a survivor more than once, Muholi explores an ongoing narrative that transcends beyond the ephemerality of the hate crime, further confronting the viewer with the appearance of a survivor after the fact. Here, Muholi implies that victims are beyond their ‘case numbers’, thus exceeding the narrative of the victim as being defined by their subjection to hate crimes. Using this ‘uncut’ method reads as an empathetic approach, and therefore deems a state of emergency for black lives. Moreover, Muholi excludes the subjects face from the image to lay utmost precedence on protecting and respecting the identity of each person. In a contemporary visual field, Muholi imbeds the narrative of black visibility through morally bankrupt and abhorrent realities.
Elements of intimacy and vulnerability in Muholi’s collection are further apparent as key instruments in exploring black lesbian pleasure. Such explorations of intimacy is facilitated through open communication between the photographer and the photographed subject. The close up images, and implementation of sexual devices within them, is an indicator of their dynamic and trusting relationship that transgresses the taboos of female sexuality and pleasure. This element of trust allows an otherwise privatised discussion of hate crimes, sexual violence, and female pleasure to exists at the forefront of the public sphere. Indicative of this trusting element is evident in Muholi’s work, Dada (2003), a photograph that works to restores black lesbianism to a state of the ‘feminine’ whilst dually indicting hate crimes that aim to ‘heal’ a victim toward a heterosexual path. The title further criticises how renowned modernist art movement, DADA, or Dadaism, has been dominated by white, cisgender men, finding its roots through a selection of Masters whilst ignoring critical black voices.
A visual analysis of this photograph depicts a young woman, wearing a strap on covered by a condom. The woman takes on a position of power by fitting the strap on to her hips, essentially steering the narrative that female pleasure can be made possible without the inclusion of a male. As an affirmation of identity politics, the photograph works to carve out an opening for black lesbians in South Africa. Muholi’s selection of the white strap on (as opposed to a black strap on) further alienates the idea that female pleasure is only made possible by heterosexual, white men. What is curious about the work however, is the inclusion of the useless condom. Perhaps, it is another testament of the denial of black voices in art movements (or possibly movements beyond the art world), that has led to the mis education of themes discussing sexuality and sexual pleasure. Subsequently, it is through the useless condom that a lack of education in sex between women reveals itself.
This photograph further depicts Muholi’s desire to give a striking voice to the marginalised. The uncensored nature contextualises Muholi’s collection as protesting against a sense of isolation that typically envisions black lesbian entities as outlandish when compared to the traditional trajectory South African womanhood. This sentiment further negates the concept of queer as ‘un- African’. Through Dada (2003), Muholi attempts to destigmatise black lesbian pleasure through uncut recounts, which paradoxically lowers the shock rate. Around the same time that Dada (2003) was produced, a documentary film titled Property of the State was released. This documentary explored the themes of violence, depicting the treatment of homosexual soldiers in South African militia. The release of this film, coupled with Muholi’s practice reveals that the ‘shock’ value in depicting the reality of lesbian lives has the potential to fall. In other words, Muholi’s practice is a testament to how exploring the disenfranchised lives of South African women through explicit themes is imperative in lowering the rate of hate crimes.
“I cannot say I am living to shock people. I am living to expose, obviously, and also to educate. Sales, or no sales, it doesn’t matter to me – it has to be done. It has to be done.”
Colour scheme is another key instrument in Muholi’s collection. The implementation of predominantly black and white tones aid in narrating earnest feminine sensibilities experience by black lesbians. As it happens, black and white photography implies a factual recount of events that negate sensationalism. This negation of sensationalism is further evident in the anonymity of the subjects, that falls into the photographer facilitation of a safe space for survivors, by keeping their identity outside of the photograph. Omitting their faces further rejects aestheticizing the difficulties that are come with being a black lesbian, whilst also keeping the subjects safe from security issues. Anonymity further relieves the black lesbian narrative to exist beyond the parameters of the photographed individual, suggesting that the disparities and inequities experienced extend beyond one case number. This approach is rooted in identity politics, as a way to uncover the common nature of these themes present in South African culture.
Through these visual projects, it is evident that Muholi attempts to cope with their own pain by forming a community bond between themselves and their subjects. This subversive narrative moves away from essentialising the black body as two dimension. Instead, an embodiment of empathy with the purpose of healing is evident. Nonetheless, Muholi reclaims the photographical space previously dominated by colonial attitudes.
Zanele Muholi, Hate Crime Survivor I (2004)
Zanele Muholi, Dada 2003. Originally black and white.
Bibliography and reference list
Baderoon, Gabeba. “Gender within Gender”: Zanele Muholi’s images of Trans Being and Becoming. Feminist Studies, Summer 2011, Vol. 37, No. 2, RACE AND TRANSGENDER STUDIES (Summer 2011), pp. 390-416. Published by: Feminist Studies, Inc. URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23069910
Willis, Brian. Black Bodies, White Science: Louis Agassiz’s Slave Daguerreotypes. American Art Vol. 9, No.2 (Summer, 1995), pp.38-61 (24 pages) Journal Article. Published by The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. URL:
Only Half the Picture: http://archive.stevenson.info/exhibitions/muholi/muholi.htm
Dada: http://archive.stevenson.info/exhibitions/muholi/dildo.htm
THE PRESIDENCY No. 331 15 March 2004 It is hereby notified that the President has assented to the following Act, which is hereby published for general information:– No. 49 of 2003: Alteration of Sex Description and Sex Status Act, 2003.
Lewin, Tessa. Queer Visual Activitsm in Contemporary South Africa. A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of Brighton, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Brighton, May 2019
Thomas, Kylie. Zanele Muholi’s Intimate Archive: Photography and Post-apartheid Lesbian Lives, Safundi. Published online: 23 Sep 2010. URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17533171.2010.511792
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