Cummer Museum

The Cummer Museum’s latest exhibit will encourage dialogue like no other exhibit will.

The over 80 self-portraits by the South African photographer and visual activist Zanele Muholi don’t feature any descriptions. The majority are labeled just where they were taken and when. Several feature Muholi in everyday items such as mops, clothespin, tires, money, and chopsticks.

Muholi was born in 1972 and lives in Johnnesburg, South Africa. Their photography is featured all over the world, including the Tate Modern in London and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Muholi calls themselves a visual activist to effect social change, specifically for Black people and those in the LGBTQIA+ community.

“I’m reclaiming my blackness, which I feel is continuously performed by the privileged other. My reality is that I do not mimic being Black; it is my skin, and the experience of being Black is deeply entrenched in me. Just like our ancestors, we live as Black people 365 days a year, and we should speak without fear,” Muholi said of their exhibit.

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