Zanele Muholi has been shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse photography prize and sees it as an opportunity to put the LGBTI message on the world stage, writes Jeremy Kuper.
Zanele Muholi is jet-lagged, after having just flown in from New York, and is speaking by Skype from Paris. She’s a finalist in the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2015 for her Faces and Phases series, portraits of black lesbian women and transwo/men, for which she is tipped to win.
Behind many of these portraits are horrifying stories of “corrective” rape. Like those of Lungile Cleo Dladla from Daveyton, or Kekeletso Khena from Jo’burg, both of whom were subjected to humiliation and rape – in Khena’s case, on several occasions. There are many of these chilling accounts.
In the Photographers’ Gallery in London, where the prize will be announced, Muholi has hung a white cloth from the ceiling like a shroud. The names of those who have been murdered because of their sexuality and gender expression are listed on the cloth. Included are testimonies – statements and quotations – from the families of victims and survivors of hate crimes.
“I thought about how victims like Gift Makau and Dudu Zozo die in their neighbourhood. Come from poor communities. Are in their 20s and hard workers, ambitious to become breadwinners in their families,” reads one.
The weight of history sits on Muholi’s shoulders as she discusses the prize. “What will it mean, if we get to win, because, when I first started producing my work, I didn’t really think I have to win.”
She says she tries to dig deeper and uncover something new, which hasn’t been asked before. “Nobody ever asked me, ‘What do I like?’ or ‘How are you feeling today?’
“I would like to live longer, to see progress in this project and also to see members of the LGBTI community gain [the] true independence and equality that we deserve in order for us to connect with our true feelings of selves, in which people want to find out how are we [rather] than the pain that we have gone through.”
For full report by Jeremy Kooper, see Mail & Guardian
