South African Visual Activist Sir Zanele Muholi Wins Major International Award
Ntozabantu VI, Parktown, 2016
Prof. Sir Zanele Muholi who is one of the most acclaimed photographers working today, having their work exhibited all over the world with a current major exhibition at Tate Modern in London, United Kingdom and have had many major awards under their name such as Lucie Award for Humanitarian Photography (2019); Rees Visionary Award by Amref Health Africa (2019); a fellowship from the Royal Photographic Society, UK (2018); France’s Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2017); the Mbokodo Award in the category of Visual Arts (2017) and Prince Claus Award (2013) to just name a few has been awardedStiftung Niedersachsen’s SPECTRUM - An International Prize for Photography in 2021. Furthermore, Muholi’s bestseller Somnyama Ngonyama Hail the Dark Lioness book won the Kraszna-Krausz best photography book award at an event held at the Royal Society of Arts in London in May 2019.
Zanele Muholi who through self-portraits, reimagines black identity and challenges the oppressive standards of beauty that often ignore people of color was born in Umlazi, Durban co-founded the Forum for Empowerment of Women (FEW) in 2002, and in 2009 founded Inkanyiso, a forum for queer and visual (activist) media uses their works to campaign against homophobic violence in South Africa and describes themselves as a “visual activist”. Muholi’s special focus is on the rights of black homosexual women and LGBTI people in their home country.
Muholi who have a variety of Photographic series’s which includes Faces & Phases,Somnyama Ngonyama, Brave Beauties amongst many others ones said; “Too often I find we are being mimicked, and distorted, by the privileged other, we are here; we have our own voices; we have our own lives.” And Muholi wants to educate people about LGBTI people’s history.
Yaya Mavundla I, Parktown, Johannesburg, 2017
Pastor Z. Zungu, Durban, 2018
The SPECTRUM – International Prize for Photography has been awarded to outstanding contemporary photographic artists since 1994. Previous prize-winners have been Fiona Tan (2019), Rineke Dijkstra (2017), Hannah Collins (2015), Boris Mikhailov (2013), Bahman Jalali (2011), Helen Levitt (2008), Martha Rosler (2005), Sophie Calle (2002), John Baldessari (1999), Thomas Struth (1997) and Robert Adams (1994) and Zanele Muholi becomes the latest one to win the major award for 2021.
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Article was first published on Opera News Hub
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