Somnyama Ngonyama

Due to lockdown restrictions delaying installation of this work, Faces and Phases will now be installed on 20 February.

“I’m reclaiming my blackness, which I feel is continuously performed by the privileged other.”

South African filmmaker, photographer and visual activist Zanele Muholi uses photography to assert their right to occupy space. Concentrating their unrelenting gaze on underrepresented faces and scenes, Muholi pierces and dissects issues of race, sexuality and gender.

Muholi’s statements around identity have culminated in their most recent work, Somnyama Ngonyama. An intensely evocative series of self-portraits, Somnyama Ngonyama brings the audience to the most personal place possible – the landscape of Muholi’s own face and body. Speaking to the black experience in the world today, each image has been composed using material props from Muholi’s immediate environment.

Muholi seeks to encourage other individuals to embody their own experiences, tell their own truths, and create without fear of vilification or abuse.

Presented by Photo Australia in partnership with the Biennale of Sydney

Supported by the City of Melbourne and Naomi Milgrom Foundation