Zanele Muholi noted after the lecture that the roots of many of these hate crimes lie in the traditional, often patriarchal beliefs of many South Africans. “When you think about hate crimes, and how black lesbians are affected by hate crimes specifically, you’re dealing with a lot of traditional spaces, where people assume that by being black and by being a woman you need to become somebody’s property and be a traditional wife where you have to take orders from your husband,” she said. As Muholi sees it, this structure “needs to be challenged and also needs to be undone, because it’s wrong. It puts a lot of women in danger and means that a lot of women’s voices are silenced.” Muholi’s work is not limited to photography. She notes that many of the participants in her activism work with Inkanyiso, including Dumse, are involved in advocacy, as well, in some form or another. Dumse said that she was first drawn to Inkanyiso when she discovered that when Muholi took a portrait photo, she was “not just taking the photograph and showing it to some Western people and that’s it.” Despite the weight of her subject matter and the crimes that she works to expose, Muholi also strives to emphasize the elements of love and intimacy that she sees in the communities she documents. When asked what viewers should draw from her work, her message was clear. “Live, love and learn from each other,” she said.
Posted on: Thu, 10 Oct 2013 09:07:58 +0000
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