Zanele Muholi is a Black non-binary visual artist focusing on race, gender and sexuality, particularly within South Africa’s LGBTQ+ community. Earlier this year, they became the 46th recipient of the Hasselblad Award, considered the world’s most prestigious international prize for a living photographer. With their win, they also became the first-ever non-binary person to take home the accolade.
Hasselblad is one of the most expensive, advanced and prestigious camera brands, with the award matching its maker. Recipients receive 2,000,000 Swedish kronor (approximately €180,000), a gold medal, a diploma, a camera, and a solo exhibition at the Hasselblad Center in the Göteborg Museum of Art in Gothenburg, Sweden.
The award has previously been won by other photography legends such as Ansel Adams and Ingrid Pollard. In an interview with Sowetan, Zanele Muholi discussed the long road to this award, and the work that went into telling Black queer stories through visual art.
When asked how communities they have photographed have shaped their work, they replied, “Lesbians in townships, trans siblings, black queer families… they taught me how to see. They co-created, corrected me when I got it wrong, and reminded me this story isn’t mine alone; it’s ours.”
The artist is 53 and from South Africa. Having grown up under apartheid, they learned the importance of an image: “Apartheid taught me that images are weapons. Black people were shown only as problems or less than… Every portrait I make is a refusal, a declaration that we will write our own history with dignity.”
Muholi’s Hasselblad exhibit opened on October 10. Regarding what viewers can expect from it, they said, “Audiences will meet real people, not symbols or victims, but full, breathing humans who have loved, laughed, fought and survived. Strength, tenderness, quiet power… It’s all there. New work will sit alongside older pieces from Faces and Phases and Somnyama Ngonyama (Hail the Dark Lioness).”
Both of these mentioned projects are highly acclaimed and have featured in world-famous museums such as the Tate Modern in London. Somnyama Ngonyama also won the Kraszna-Krausz Photography Book Award in 2019.
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See more of Muholi’s work here.
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