Zanele Muholi

This week we celebrate Zanele Muholi, who won this year's Hasselblad Award. Muholi is a South African artist and visual activist working in photography, video, and installation. Muholi's work focuses on race, gender and sexuality, documenting and celebrating the lives of South Africa's Black lesbian, gay, transgender, and intersex communities. Muholi is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns. 

Through their artistic approach they hope to document the journey of the African queer community as a record for future generations. They try to capture the moment without negativity or focusing on the prevalent violence, recording the overall LGBTI community of South Africa and their challenges, and at times, more specifically the struggle of Black lesbians. Muholi views their work as collaborative, referring to the individuals they photograph as "participants" rather than as subjects.

Muholi was shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize in 2015. They received an Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography in 2016, a Chevalier de Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2016, an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society in 2018 and is now the winner of 46th Hasselblad Award.

(Source: Wikipedia accessed on 26 March 2026)

Selected publications

Abbas, Hakima, and Sokari Ekine, Queer African reader (Dakar, 2013).

Ellington, Tameka N, Textures: the history and art of Black hair (Kent, 2021).

Goldsmid, Peter, and Zanele Muholi, Difficult love (Johannesburg, 2011).

Hertz, Betti-Sue, Frank Smigiel and Dominic Willsdon, Public intimacy: art and other ordinary acts in South Africa (San Francisco, 2014).

Martínez Vázquez, Ricardo, and Zanele Muholi, Zanele Muholi (Madrid, 2011).

Muholi, Zanele, Zanele Muholi: only half the picture (Cape Town, 2006).

Muholi, Zanele, Faces and phases (Munich, 2010).

Munro, Brenna M, South Africa and the dream of love to come: queer sexuality and the struggle for freedom (Minneapolis, 2012).

Thomas, Kylie, Impossible mourning: HIV/AIDS and visuality after apartheid (Lewisburg, 2014).

Van der Vlies, Andrew, ‘Queer knowledge and the politics of the gaze in contemporary South African photography: Zanele Muholi and others’ (2012).

Zanele Muholi – 2026 Hasselblad Award Laureate