The highly anticipated second volume in the widely acclaimed and celebrated self-portrait series, Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness by Zanele Muholi, which it's first book won the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation award as the best photography book award and the second edition is here.
In Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness, Volume II, Zanele Muholi explores and expands upon new personas and poetic interpretations of personhood, queerness, blackness, and the possibilities of self. Since the publication of the first volume in 2018, Muholi has continued to photograph their self in a range of new international locations. Drawing on material props found in each environment, Muholi boldly explores their own image and innate possibilities as a Black individual in today's global society, and-most important-speaks emphatically in response to contemporary and historical racisms.
Renée Mussai, curator and historian, brings together written contributions from more than ten curators, poets, and authors, building a poetic and experimental framework that extends the idea of speculative futures and the potentiality of multivalent selves. Powerfully arresting, this collection further amplifies Muholi's expressive and radical manifesto. As they state in the first volume, "My practice as a visual activist looks at Black resistance-existence as well as insistence."
Their ground-breaking series of SomnyamaNgonyama, where Muholi uses their body as a canvas to confront the politics of race, the Black Lives Matter movement and representation in the visual archive together with Faces and Phases, where Muholi documents the history of black lesbians and transgender individuals has been widely exhibited around the world at major museums and galleries including TATE Modern in London, UK, Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African American Art at Harvard University in Boston, USA, Seattle Art Museum, USA, Autograph ABP, London, UK and Venice Biennale, Italy to name a few. Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness, Volume Il is 172 pages available in English and is published by Aperture.
About Muholi
Prof. Sir Zanele Muholi is a renowned photographer, visual activist and humanitarian from South Africa whose work has been shown around the world at major museums and galleries and is currently on show at TATE London. They have received prizes & recognition for their work and activism, including France's Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, GLAMOUR Woman of the Year, Infinity Award, Prince Claus and Ryerson Alumni Achievement award to name a few. They are represented by Southern Guild in South Africa, Yancey Richardson in America, Gallerie Carole Kvasnevski in France and Pearl Lam Gallery in Hong Kong.
