Zanele Muholi brings Sibaningi exhibition home to Johannesburg

Faces and Phases turns 20 at the Market Photo Workshop, with a book launch, days after the Hasselblad Award ceremony in Sweden.

Zanele Muholi opens Sibaningi at the Market Photo Workshop in Newtown on Saturday 17 October 2026. The exhibition runs until 5 December. It marks 20 years of Faces and Phases, the portrait series Muholi started in Johannesburg in 2006, and it includes the launch of a book on the same body of work. The Zanele Muholi Sibaningi exhibition is a Muholi Art Institute production, curated by Lufuno Ramadwa.

The Johannesburg opening follows the Hasselblad Award ceremony in Gothenburg on 9 October. The Hasselblad Award is the world’s largest photography prize. Muholi receives SEK 2,000,000, a gold medal and a Hasselblad camera, and a solo exhibition at the Hasselblad Center from 10 October 2026 to 4 April 2027. Muholi is the first Black queer African photographer to receive the award.

“This prize is not mine alone, Sibaningi. I carry it with the many faces, names, and histories that have trusted me with their stories. From Umlazi to every space where Black LGBTQIA+ people continue to fight to exist freely, this recognition affirms that our lives are worthy of being seen, not as statistics, not as shadows, but as full human beings.”

Zanele Muholi, on being named the 2026 Hasselblad laureate

Sibaningi is an isiZulu word. It means we are many. Muholi is using it as a statement of recognition. I see you, you see me, and we see you, because there are plenty of us. The exhibition is part of Africa Pride Month, and it returns the series to the place where it started.

Muholi studied at the Market Photo Workshop, the Newtown school and gallery founded by David Goldblatt in 1989. Faces and Phases began there in 2006, at a time when the Constitution had promised equality and Black queer and trans people were still living with discrimination, violence and silence. Muholi was part of the community in the photographs. The point was to make a record of people living, working and loving, not only a record of harm.

Faces names the person in front of the camera. Phases names what changes with time: gender expression, age, relationships, loss, work and home. Muholi has gone back to many of the same participants over the years, and in some cases over decades. The book and the exhibition put early portraits next to later ones. Sibaningi also brings in new faces. The people photographed are participants in a record that is still open.

“It is important to mark, map and preserve our mo(ve)ments through visual histories for reference and posterity so that future generations will note that we were here.”

Zanele Muholi, on Faces and Phases

On opening day, Muholi will speak at 12:00 midday, after which the exhibition opens. Entry is free. Safe parking is available at Newtown Junction Mall. The show stays up through Pride Month, as part of the Muholi Art Institute’s work in archive and photography education. For the Gothenburg exhibition, curators are Louise Wolthers and Dragana Vujanović Östlind of the Hasselblad Foundation.

“I am rewriting a Black queer and trans visual history of South Africa for the world to know of our existence, resistance and persistence.”

Zanele Muholi

The series is still growing. Sibaningi says we are many, back in the city where the photographs began.

EXHIBITION

Title Sibaningi
Series Faces and Phases, 2006 to 2026
Curator Lufuno Ramadwa
Production Muholi Art Institute
Talk and opening Saturday 17 October 2026, 12:00 midday
Venue Market Photo Workshop, Newtown, Johannesburg
On view 17 October to 5 December 2026
Entry Free
Parking Newtown Junction Mall

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Images and interview requests: Thanduxolo Jindela, below. The Hasselblad ceremony is on 9 October 2026 in Gothenburg. The Hasselblad Center exhibition opens on 10 October 2026. Muholi’s pronouns are they. Sibaningi is isiZulu for we are many.

ABOUT ZANELE MUHOLI

Zanele Muholi was born in Umlazi, Durban, and lives between Johannesburg and Cape Town. Muholi studied photography at the Market Photo Workshop and later completed an MFA in documentary media at Ryerson University in Toronto. Muholi is represented by Yancey Richardson Gallery in New York and Southern Guild in Cape Town.