Zanele Muholi Returns to South Africa with Major Solo Exhibition

Durban-born multimedia artist and creative Zanele Muholi is bringing an exhibition back home after years of teaching and exhibiting across the globe, making its South African debut at Southern Guild in the V&A Waterfront.

Kanye Nawe brings together many pieces of Muholi’s work from various eras, including photography and sculpture, as well as the award-winning 2010 documentary about their life, Difficult Love. The exhibition’s title means “with you,” “alongside you,” or “oneness” in isiZulu, with no project exemplifying this ethos more than Faces and Phases. What started as a collection of portraits meant to counter the homophobia faced by Black LGBTQIA+ communities in South Africa has grown into a global record of queer love, resistance, and identity – with pieces from London, Porto, Panama City, São Paulo, and more.

The exhibition also brings together other key bodies of Muholi’s work, including the photographic reflection of black lesbians in South Africa in Only Half the Picture, other portrait projects including Being, Mo(u)rning, ZaVa, and LiZa, and the powerful self-portrait series Somnyama Ngonyama (Hail the Dark Lioness). Also featured is a series of new bronze sculptures that bring these concepts of ancestry and vulnerability into three dimensions while highlighting Muholi’s versatility as an artist.

Kanye Nawe was a major attraction while exhibiting overseas, even winning the 2026 Hasselblad Award, widely considered the most prestigious international photography prize. Muholi sees the exhibition as an educational experience that shows the importance of caring for others, regardless of race, gender, or sexuality, and of passing that understanding on to future generations.

The exhibition opens at a critical time for Muholi and South Africa: it is presented to the public in Muholi’s birthday month, and 20 years on from the start of their landmark Faces and Phases series. It is also 20 years since the passing of their nephew, Nkanyiso, and many of Muholi’s friends, to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. This, along with other important national milestones, such as the 50th anniversary of the Soweto Uprising earlier this year, makes Kanye Nawe‘s July opening on Mandela Day a truly meaningful occasion.

After years of their work being exhibited abroad, Kanye Nawe finally gives South Africans the chance to experience Muholi’s boundary-pushing, multimedia artworks that centre black queer experiences, celebrate visibility and intimacy, and confront violence and erasure.