Saved by photography, celebrated for documenting black LGBTQ lives

PHOTOGRAPHY saved her from suicide and now internationally recognised South African visual artist Zanele Muholi, most known for her stark portraits of black LGBTQ communities, is using her success to empower others.

- BRONWEN ROBERTS

Muholi’s growing renown keeps her busy: she has been working on a project about water in Panama and collaborating with a London nonprofit for a show next month, while also opening a new exhibition in Portugal.

It was a priority for her to get back to South Africa for last week’s Black Women in Photography Conference, at the school in downtown Johannesburg where she started out 22 years ago.

Muholi arrived just in time from a stay in hospital in Panama, where she had fallen into a dump of medical waste during a photo shoot and been jabbed by a needle.

“It was a wake-up call to say that moving too fast could become something else,” said Muholi, in her early 50s, her trademark dreadlocks sticking through the top of her hat.

“I’m grateful that I’m alive," she said at the conference.

It was here at the Market Photo Workshop that Muholi took up photography, having moved to Johannesburg from KwaZulu-Natal aged 19 and enduring a series of ordeals.

“I was on the verge of suicide,” she said. “And then somebody told me it was either therapy or I find something creative to deal with. Then somebody told me about Markets.”