Drawing on unique experiences, history and cultural memory, Muholi’s critically acclaimed ongoing series Somnyama Ngonyama – which translates to ‘Hail, the Dark Lioness’ from isiZulu, one of the official languages of South Africa – playfully deploys the conventions of classical painting, fashion photography, and the familiar tropes of ethnographic imagery to rearticulate contemporary identity politics.

Throughout the series, the dark complexion of Muholi’s skin is intensified through enhanced contrast applied in post-production, and becomes the focal point of a profound, multilayered interrogation of existential notions of ‘blackness and being’, beauty and pride – critically visualizing matters of self, care and perseverance in the light of the many interlinked phobias and isms navigated daily, especially by persons identifying as black, brown, female, queer, non-binary or trans: racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia, to name but a few.

Here, the camera becomes a cathartic tool of action and reclamation, and photography a therapeutic mode of survival. Taken between 2012 and 2019 in diverse locations in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America, Muholi's socio-cultural radical brand of self-portraiture transforms found objects and quotidian materials into dramatic, historically loaded visual ‘props’ – merging the political with the personal.

At times commenting on specific events in South Africa’s past and its present, or drawing on their own family history, the works also point to universal concerns pertinent to our current times through a range of inherent symbolisms: scouring pads, blankets, and latex gloves address themes of domestic servitude while alluding to sexual politics, cultural violence, and the often suffocating prisms of gendered identities. Rubber tires, cable ties, or electrical cords invoke forms of social unrest, brutality and capitalist exploitation. Plastic tubes, hose pipes and polythene draw attention to environmental issues and global waste, as well as migration crises, and climate change; while accessories like cowrie shells and beaded fly whisks highlight continual Western fascinations with clichéd, exoticized representations of African cultures.

Gazing defiantly at the camera, Muholi – whose preferred gender-neutral pronouns are they / them / theirs – challenges viewers’ perceptions while firmly asserting cultural and sexual identities on their own terms.

“Somnyama Ngonyama presents a compelling and visionary mosaic of visual identities, an exquisite empire of selves. Inviting us into a multilayered, visceral exchange of “gazes”, each photograph in this ongoing series of auto-portraits, each visual inscription, each archival intervention, each confrontational narrative depicts a self in profound dialogue with countless others: implicitly gendered, resolutely non-conforming, culturally complex and historically grounded Black bodies… Muholi’s bold creative practice – both activist and remedial at its core – enables art, advocacy and human rights to converse symbiotically, especially poignant considering the current socio-cultural climates unfolding globally.” - Renée Mussai, Curator