Zanele Muholi: Mobile Studios | Art21 "Extended Play"

[Zanele Muholi: Mobile Studios]

[Daveyton, South Africa]

[MUHOLI SPEAKING IN ZULU]
Show me your eyes only.

Breathe in and out.
Everything is good now.

You can do this.
No, the fur coat is fine!

I'm trying to form these mobile studios

where you don't need to be
fixated in one space.

We live here, pay taxes.

We are citizens of this country,

which is democratic, they say.

Any space is a possible space.

It's my own way of writing
South African LGBTI history.

So I don't want to be limited by anything.

I don't want to be in any studio.
I want to be unplugged.

That's Bathini, who is from Soweto,

but connecting with Collen,
who is in Daveyton.

And we are assisted by Carla.

And Lerato is the project coordinator.

I try to make sure that I
empower the people

that are featuring in the series--

and people who are around me.

These are "Faces and Phases" participants.

Then there's Katiso with Ovulenda,

who are in another series
called "Brave Beauties."

"Brave Beauties" looks
specifically at trans women

who are beauty queens.

[MUHOLI SPEAKING IN ZULU]
No, I'm with you.

I want to make the best shot.

When there are exhibitions,
I take the participants with me,

so they will be able
to speak for themselves

and get to see what happens
to the photographs.

How many of you have been to exhibitions?

Have you been to exhibitions before?

[PARTICIPANT] No.

[MUHOLI] I needed to give those humans
a space to express,

which is not what they usually do
on a daily basis.

[PARTICIPANT] Being shown on the exhibition,

is a sign of showing people that we exist

and we are human.

[MUHOLI] Creating the "activist wall,"

it's a way in which we
destabilize the peaceful imagery

of the gallery setting.

[PARTICIPANT, IN ZULU]
I want to speak for myself,

be strong,
and be the person that I truly am.

["Trans is beauty']
["Trans is strength"]

[MUHOLI] Especially gallery settings--
its white walls, beautiful images.

It seems as if there's no agency.

Yes, they are these
beautiful young individuals

who are on the walls,

but they have their own
personal stories to tell.

Surely, the "Brave Beauties"
are the only visual document

that has ever existed
that has reached that far.

[PARTICIPANT] You can zoom in if you want to,
I don't have pimples!

[MUHOLI] So, I just wanted to
give a voice to trans women--

to be heard and be seen
in art spaces.

I needed to make sure that

people see themselves
as worthy humans,

just like every other important woman
in South African history

or beyond South African borders.