2009
* Collaborations
* Being (T)here



2008
* Massa & Mina(h)



2007-2009
*Faces & Phases


*Being

Being (T)here




Photo credit: Sean Fitzpatrick
Location: Amsterdam, 2009

... the concept behind the red light district intervention

My passion for women’s experiences and their history inspired Being (T)here, which is essentially a research project in which I explore a foreign space and interact with it. Photos in this series were taken in the red light district in Amsterdam while I was on a residency at the Thami Mnyele studio.

When I conceptualised the project I had a lot of questions in mind, among them:
‘What are the secrets and moral panics of society when one looks at these images and thinks of one’s sexuality?’

The major part of my work deals with marginalised groups and the multiple identities that come with ‘being’. This project continues my ongoing documentation of black lesbian identities, particularly looking at the different types of work women choose to do for survival. (It is a different question when someone is forced to do a certain kind of job against her will.)

Part of the project is the continuous collaboration with other visual practitioners, as my own image is recorded by various photographers on my behalf. In this way I emphasise what bell hooks called ‘turning [my] own body into a subject of art’, as I consciously allow myself to be captured by the ‘other’.

Read review in Sowetan...
by Edward Tsumele
Dec. 4, 2009: DARING documentary photographer Zanele Muholi has taken her often controversial portrayal of lesbian sexuality to another level, this time by making herself the subject of her photography.