“When I was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, many African countries were still fighting for their independence from European colonialism, and black nationalism was at an all-time high. While Mozambique, Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia were slowly winning independence, South Africa’s fight for freedom against racialized oppression was quashed with brutal force by the apartheid state.
It is so unfortunate that, in most of those countries that gained independence before South Africa, homophobia, queerphobia, transphobia and lesbophobia are deeply entrenched, with African leaders criminalizing homosexuality and publicly projecting hate speech.
As black lesbian women and gay men today we are resisting homophobia, queerphobia and transphobia simply by living our lives. We put ourselves at risk in the townships by coming out and being seen, but we refuse to comply and to deny our own existence.” – Zanele Muholi, Johannesburg, April 2014
Image 1: Left: Lebo Mashifane, District Six, Cape Town, 2009, Right: Linda Myataza, NY 147, Gugulethu, Cape Town, 2011
Image 2: Left: Thandeka Ndamase, Kwa Thema, Springs, Johannesburg, 2010, Right: Ayanda Magudulela, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, 2010
Zanele Muholi : faces and phases 2006-2014
Author / Creator
Muholi, Zanele [photographer]
Göttingen, Germany : Steidl ; New York : Walther Collection, 2014.
"In Faces and Phases 200614, Zanele Muholi embarks on a journey of visual activism to ensure black queer and transgender visibility. Despite South Africa’s progressive Constitution and twenty years of democracy, black lesbians and trans men remain the targets of brutal hate crimes and so-called corrective rapes. Taken over the past eight years, the more than 250 portraits in this book, accompanied by moving testimonies, present a compelling statement about the lives and struggles of these individuals. They also comprise an unprecedented and invaluable archive: marking, mapping and preserving an often invisible community for posterity."
English
HOLLIS number: 990144021650203941
