Zanele Muholi in London



Zanele Muholi self 2015

I first saw Zanele Muholi and her work in Cape Town about a dozen years ago  -  with a sequence of sepia close-ups of dark skin, arresting and beautiful images set beside terrible accounts of attacks on LGBTQ individuals.   Since then, her work has been seen internationally, as I glimpsed in Johannesburg last year.  It's an ongoing, ever-developing project entitled Somnyama Ngonyama,  the latest phase of which is  on view at Autograph ABP,  Rivington Place, EC2A 3BA  Tues-Sats 13 July till end October

http://autograph-abp.co.uk/exhibitions/zanele-muholi


"I’m reclaiming my blackness, which I feel is continuously performed by the privileged other. My reality is that I do not mimic being black; it is my skin, and the experience of being black is deeply entrenched in me. Just like our ancestors, we live as black people 365 days a year, and we should speak without fear." - Zanele Muholi 

Interview with Muholi and more pictures  here

 

 

 

 

 

Ras Mäkonnen (Wäldä-Mika'él)

The Archive of the Lafayette photographic studio in London has some splendid portraits of Ras Makonnen (1852-1906).  and the delegation from Ethiopia who attended the coronation of Edward VII in summer 1902.  What's more the images are fully annotated, not just with details of the individuals seen but notes on their honours, garments and accessories, with extensive bibliographic references.  Some welcome research there, apparently by the V&A  which now manages the Lafayette Archive.
 

Together with the  Spy portrait of Ras Makonnen in Vanity Fair, (above, which now looks as if it may have been 'assisted' by the Lafayette images)   the photos testify to the newsworthiness of the delegation in 1902.  I don't know  why the Ethiopians sat to Lafayette Ltd rather than to Benjamin Stone, who photographed many coronation-visiting dignitaries and entourages at the Palace of Westminster, but possibly Lafayette saw Makonnen and his colleagues as greater celebrities.  The group is posed on a carpet and in front of a scenic backdrop more usually seen in publicity images of showbiz stars.

 

I wish I could have included these pictures in Black Victorians, but as far as I know they exist only as photographic negatives, not prints.  Maybe some other archive has contemporary prints?  The images are of stunning quality as well as historical interest and deserve to be well known.