Zanele Muholi’s Landmark Homecoming Celebrates Two Decades of Visual Activism

After years of exhibiting and teaching at leading institutions around the world, acclaimed South African artist Zanele Muholi returns home with a landmark solo exhibition that celebrates more than two decades of artistic practice, activism, and storytelling. The Zanele Muholi exhibition, Kanye Nawe, opening at Southern Guild Cape Town from 18 July to 10 September 2026, marks a significant moment not only in Muholi’s career but also in South Africa’s contemporary cultural landscape.

Meaning “with you”, “alongside you”, or “oneness” in isiZulu, Kanye Nawe occupies the entire Southern Guild gallery at Silo 5, V&A Waterfront. Bringing together photography, sculpture, and the award-winning documentary Difficult Love (2020), the exhibition creates a powerful visual archive that honours Black Queer life in South Africa and beyond. Throughout the exhibition, themes of visibility, memory, intimacy, collective care, and resilience are explored while confronting the realities of erasure and violence.

The exhibition represents a deeply personal homecoming for Muholi. Opening during the artist’s birthday month, it coincides with several significant milestones, including twenty years of the landmark Faces and Phases series, twenty years since the loss of Muholi’s nephew Nkanyiso and friends to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and twenty years since South Africa’s Civil Union Act. These personal anniversaries unfold alongside national commemorations marking the 70th anniversary of the 1956 Women’s March, the 50th anniversary of the 1976 Soweto Uprising, and thirty years of South African democracy.

At the heart of the exhibition is Faces and Phases, Muholi’s ongoing portrait project, initiated in 2006 to challenge the invisibility and hate crimes experienced by Black LGBTQIA+ communities. What began as a South African project has evolved into an internationally recognised archive documenting lives, identities, love, and resilience. The Cape Town presentation combines early South African portraits with more recent works created in London, Porto, Panama City, Los Angeles, Salvador, São Paulo, and Venice, illustrating both the global reach and enduring relevance of the series.

Alongside Faces and Phases, visitors will encounter several of Zanele Muholi’s most celebrated bodies of work, including Only Half the Picture, Being, Mo(u)rning, ZaVa, LiZa, and the internationally acclaimed self-portrait series Somnyama Ngonyama (Hail the Dark Lioness). New bronze sculptures further expand these narratives into three-dimensional form, exploring ideas of ancestry, protection, vulnerability, and strength.

For Muholi, the exhibition reflects the transformative role that art can play within society. Through portraiture and sculpture, each work contributes to a broader collective history while encouraging audiences to engage with stories that foster dignity, understanding, and remembrance across generations.

Following international acclaim and the prestigious 2026 Hasselblad Award, the Zanele Muholi exhibition, Kanye Nawe, offers South African audiences a rare opportunity to experience Muholi’s extensive body of work together in one exhibition on home soil. More than a retrospective, it is a powerful affirmation of community, identity, and belonging, underscoring the enduring importance of Black Queer stories within South Africa’s cultural narrative.

Admission to Kanye Nawe is free, inviting visitors from all backgrounds to experience one of South Africa’s most significant contemporary artists in a landmark exhibition that celebrates the power of art to preserve memory, inspire dialogue, and bring people together.