Notes

‘My practice as a visual activist looks at black resistance – existence as well as insistence. Most of the work I have done over the years focuses exclusively on black LGBTQIA and gender-nonconforming individuals making sure we exist in the visual archive … Too often we find ourselves in spaces where we cannot declare our entire being. We are here; we have our own voices; we have our own lives. We can’t rely on others to represent us adequately, or allow them to deny our existence. Hence I am producing this photographic document to encourage individuals in my community to be brave enough to occupy spaces – brave enough to create without fear of being vilified, brave enough to take on that visual text, those visual narratives. To teach people about our history, to rethink what history is all about, to reclaim it for ourselves – to encourage people to use artistic tools such as cameras as weapons to fight back.’¹

1. Renée Mussai. (2018) ‘Archive of the Self: Renée Mussai in conversation with Zanele Muholi’, in Leslie Martin. (ed.) Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness,New York: Aperture. Pages 176 and 177.

Exhibited