Muholi. A Visual Activist

The beauty of the compositions and the absolute talent as an artist are for Muholi, one of the most interesting voices of Visual Activism, only a means of affirming the need to exist, the dignity and respect to which every human being is entitled in spite of race, and the gender with which he or she identifies.

Sonnyama Ngonyama, literally “Hail Black Lioness,” is Muholi’s social and political proclamation, in which the artist signs a series of self-portraits that stage, in their composition, a real denunciation, to which the artist herself lends her body.

Its purpose is the removal of barriers, the rethinking of history, the encouragement to be oneself, and to use artistic tools such as a camera as weapons to assert oneself, and fight back.