2025-03-10 | Zanele Muholi: in Visible: Art as Policies for Care. Socially Engaged Art (2010–Ongoing)
A great book Visible: Art as Policies for Care. Socially Engaged Art (2010–Ongoing) edited by Martina Angelotti, Matteo Lucchetti, Judith Wielander, also includes a project ‘Inkanyiso’ led by our fellow Zanele Muholi.
Inkanyiso, “illumination” in Zulu, is a South African collective of Black lesbians and trans men led by Zanele Muholi. It aims to document and showcase the lives of its members, offering a vital platform for advocacy, education, and psychological support, also addressing issues such as transgender healthcare access. Inkanyiso seeks to boos visibility and challenge conventional narratives about gender and sexual minorities through art. As both subjects and storytellers of their own experiences, its members ground the dignity and complexities at the crossroad of Black and queer identities. By blending aesthetics with activism, the collective fosters a deeper understanding of gender and sexuality, playing a crucial role in the LGBTQ+ movement and advocating for acceptance and transformative change within both South Africa and internationally.
The book Visible: Art as Policies for Care. Socially Engaged Art (2010–Ongoing) was born from the editors’ enduring curatorial research into long-term situated art projects that exist within the social sphere, beyond the logic of the traditional art system, confronting unjust systems, and prefiguring novel visions for living together.
The socially engaged art projects collected here hold a significant place in the constantly evolving trans-local art scene of the past two decades, and form a lens through which to observe changing realities and their urgencies; they redefine the concept of art in light of current climatic, political, and social changes and foster the dematerialization of the artwork in processes that become policies of culture and care.