Zanele Muholi prefers not to be known as an artist; instead, the South African photographer, who was born in Umlazi at the height of apartheid, identifies as a “visual activist.” A quick look at their résumé in advocating queer media makes it easy to understand why, though it’s also nearly impossible to not admire the artistry in their latest series of black-and-white self-portraits, which Aperture published nearly 100 of today in a long-awaited monograph. Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness is a response to racism past and present, as well as a history lesson and even a guide book of sorts, for using “artistic tools such as cameras as weapons to fight back.” For Muholi, that fight has long centered around proper representation of queerness and race, and there’s no better testament to their experience in doing so that, after spending more than a decade taking portraits of queer South Africans, they’ve now managed to pack all that into just one subject: themselves. See for yourself with a look inside the book, here.
