Zanele Muholi is a visual activist, humanitarian and art practitioner who lives and works between Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town.

Muholi focuses on the documentation and celebration of the lives of South Africa’s Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex communities in their work. Between 2001 and 2003, they studied Advanced Photography at the Market Photo Workshop in Newtown, Johannesburg. They received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Liège in Belgium (2023), were appointed Honorary Professor of video and photography at the University of the Arts/Hochschule für Künste in Bremen, Germany (2013), and completed an MFA in Documentary Media at Ryerson University, Toronto (2009).

Beginning in 2006, Muholi responded to the continuing discrimination and violence faced by the LGBTI community by photographing Black lesbian and transgender individuals, resulting in the ongoing portrait project, Faces and Phases.

Muholi is invested in educational activism, community outreach and youth development. In 2009 they founded Inkanyiso, a forum for queer and visual (activist) media and in 2002 co-founded the Forum for Empowerment of Women (FEW). They facilitate access to art spaces for youth practitioners through projects such as Ikhono LaseNatali and continue to provide photography workshops for young women and in the townships through PhotoXP.