Zanele Muholi, an acclaimed photographer and activist whose work celebrates the queer Black experience in South Africa and beyond, has won the Hasselblad Award, the world’s leading photography prize, which carries a cash award of SEK 2,000,000 (approximately $218,000).
As part of the award, Muholi will receive a solo exhibition at the Hasselblad Center in Gothenburg, Sweden, along with an accompanying publication. The exhibition opens on October 10 and remains on view through April 24, 2027.
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Muholi, a self-proclaimed “visual activist,” was born in 1972 under South Africa’s apartheid regime, a system of oppression that continues to the artist’s portraiture practice, which is at once tender and driven by political urgency. Muholi’s subjects, rendered in soft grayscale and dramatic lighting, typically meet their viewer’s gaze. They appear almost monumental, and act as symbols of the stories omitted from South Africa’s popular imagination.
Speaking to ARTnews in 2018, Muholi described their desire to illuminate the diverse histories that underpin South Africa. “They are history makers,” Muholi said, referring to their collaborators—activists, drag performers, and young, hopeful artists—individuals often pushed to the margins by bigotry.
“I’m not just taking photos for fine arts—I’m producing content that speaks to South African visual history and to a group of people who, simply because of how they express themselves, won’t be counted in history,” they added. “That includes me, so I’m working on content that’s produced by us, for us, about us—not dependent on other so-called experts.”
The Hasselblad Foundation wrote in its citation that Zanele Muholi’s photographs “are formally compelling, employing composition, colour, greyscale, and lighting to create an adept visual language that holds both strength and vulnerability.” Their portraits, the foundation continued, challenge “prejudice and discrimination while creating alternative visual histories … making Muholi a central figure in global queer visual culture.”
A ceremony for the Hasselblad Award will take place on October 9, followed by an artist talk at Moderna Museet in Stockholm on October 13.
In a statement shared by the Hasselblad Foundation, Muholi said, “This prize is not mine alone. I carry it with the many faces, names, and histories that have trusted me with their stories. From Umlazi to every space where Black LGBTQIA+ people continue to fight to exist freely, this recognition affirms that our lives are worthy of being seen—not as statistics, not as shadows, but as full human beings.”
