February 2022 Newsletter: Zanele's Muholi Photographic Exhibition, Tate Modern

It was 19/5/2021 when Tate Modern, our beloved London Art Space had just re-opened by previous booking after the COVID-19 closure. It was an-about-to-rain May afternoon having an after work pre booked ticket at Tate Modern around 4 pm, an easy walk from Southwalk Jubilee Line Station to visit Zanele's Muholi exhibition, all my previous booked visits cancelled so many times due to the lockdowns. The skies were heavy full of dark grey and blue colours when I entered and got to the Member's Cafe for a breather and a bite. Due to the social distancing rules one had to queu to enter, the uncovered roof terrace customers got inside, we had to wait even longer. Somehow I made it in having a cuppa on the waiting area watching the rain patting on the roof terrace, all grey floors and the skies, to find out the food had finished and the choices were limited. This is worth of 3D representation symbolising my nausea caused by the rain after work, the mask and the limited services to relax.  

Regarding Zanele's Muholi exhibition, gigantic banners outside Tate Modern inviting attendance, it is a visual activism storytelling about the politics of race and representation. Old knowledge, since my 90s postgraduate studies at UCL under Dr Diana Leonard, that the gaze is constructed. Zanele's Muholi photographic portraits present a reclaimed difference through a point of view, performed from inside, not by the privileged other. One can see the 500 plus Zanele's Muholi photographic portraits, all of South African black women of difference, placed on Tate Modern blank white walls and finally towards the exit, two rooms devoted to the history line of colonisation and apartheid. 

'I am in peace with my maker and creator' and 'remember me when I am gone' , said Busi Sigasa in 2016, in 2021 eternally alive only in Zanele's Muholi 'Faces and Phases'. 

The art exhibition sends a clear message against all kinds of mistreat of women's bodies.

This exhibition makes me think of complications and suffocated freedoms due to the lock down and social distancing guidelines. 

Going out the rain has stopped and the River Thames provides always a fresh calming experience of the outdoors to clear my thoughts and enjoy the beautiful fresh sunset hour.

 So, the question is what is your gaze to Zanele's Muholi visual activism storytelling about the politics of race and representation?

Article, Photos and Photo Collage Credit: Mary Zagoritou

19/5/2021