Join Jonathan Ball Publishers for the launch of Zanele Muholi’s new book Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness, Vol. II.

Muholi will be in conversation with Ashraf Jamal at the launch.

Date: Wednesday 21 August 2024
Time: 17:30 for 18:00
Venue: Mamakashaka, 5 De Beer Street, Braamfontein, Joburg
RSVP: Charlene.Davids@jonathanball.co.za
Facebook event

 

About the book

The highly anticipated second volume to the widely acclaimed and celebrated self-portrait series, Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness.

In Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness, Vol. 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 themself 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 10 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.’

About the author

Zanele Muholi (born in Umlazi, South Africa) is a visual activist and photographer, cofounder of the Forum for the Empowerment of Women, and founder of Inkanyiso, a forum for queer and visual media. Muholi has won numerous awards, including France’s Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2017; ICP Infinity Award for Documentary and Photojournalism (2016); Fine Prize for an emerging artist at the 2013 Carnegie International; and a Prince Claus Award (2013). Their Faces and Phases series was shown at dOCUMENTA (13) and the 55th Venice Biennale, and was shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize in 2015. The first volume of Somnyama Ngonyama (Aperture, 2018) was awarded the Kraszna-Krausz Photography Book Award in 2019. Muholi is an honorary professor at the University of the Arts Bremen, Germany. They are represented by Stevenson Gallery, Johannesburg, and Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York.

Categories Non-fiction South Africa

Tags Book events Book launches Johannesburg Jonathan Ball Publishers Photography Somnyama Ngonyama Zanele Muholi