ZANELE MUHOLI

Thandi and Thandeka Mbatha, Parktown, Johannesburg, 2010

Zanele Muholi’s Faces and Phases at Art Statements - Art Basel.

Muholi shows 66 new portraits in this ongoing series which offers an insider’s perspective on the lives of the black lesbians and transmen she has met on her journeys as an activist. Collectively, the portraits are at once a visual statement and an archive: marking, mapping and preserving an often invisible community for posterity. Muholi writes:

In the face of all the challenges our community encounters daily, I embarked on a journey of visual activism to ensure that there is black queer visibility. Faces and Phases is about our histories and the struggles that we face. Faces express the person, and Phases signify the transition from one stage of sexuality or gender expression and experience to another. Faces is also about the face-to-face confrontation between myself as the photographer/activist and the many lesbians, women and transmen I have interacted with from different places. Photographs in this series traverse spaces from Gauteng, Cape Town, Mafikeng and Botswana to Sweden.

(via STEVENSON | Zanele Muholi)