South African visual activist and artist Zanele Muholi has been named the recipient of the 2026 Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography, widely regarded as the most prestigious honour in the field. The award recognises a practice that has profoundly reshaped contemporary photography through its insistence on visibility, dignity, and human rights.
20 April 2026
Photo credit: Zanele Muholi, Somnyama Ngonyama
As this year’s laureate, Muholi will be honoured with a solo exhibition at the Hasselblad Centre in Gothenburg, running from 10 October 2026 to 4 April 2027. The exhibition forms part of Hasselblad Award Week, which will include a seminar organised in collaboration with the County Administrative Board of Västra Götaland, a concert with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, the exhibition opening, a book launch, the formal award ceremony, and an artist talk at Moderna Museet in Stockholm.
“It is with great pleasure that we award Zanele Muholi the 46th Hasselblad Award,” says Kalle Sanner, CEO of the Hasselblad Foundation. “In their artistic practice, Muholi combines photography with activism, creating powerful and significant works in which human rights are central. We look forward to presenting an extensive selection of their work this autumn at the Hasselblad Center.”
Copyright: Elizabeth Carababus & Southern Guild.
Over the past two decades, Muholi has emerged as one of the most influential figures in contemporary photography. Their work centres the lives and experiences of the Black LGBTQIA+ community in South Africa and across the diaspora, using portraiture as both an artistic and political tool.
Born in 1972 during the apartheid era, Muholi is acutely aware of the power of images in shaping collective memory and historical narratives. In their hands, photography becomes a means of confronting systemic violence while constructing an archive of presence and resilience. Their images are formally striking, employing careful composition, dramatic lighting, and both colour and greyscale to produce portraits that hold strength alongside vulnerability.
Copyright: Elizabeth Carababus & Southern Guild.
In many of these photographs, subjects meet the viewer’s gaze directly, asserting their individuality and humanity. This visual encounter disrupts stereotypes and challenges prejudice, creating space for alternative narratives to emerge. Through this approach, Muholi’s work constructs a visual history that affirms lives often marginalised or erased within mainstream cultural representation.
A cornerstone of Muholi’s practice is the ongoing project Faces and Phases, initiated in 2006. The series documents Black lesbian, transgender, and gender-nonconforming individuals living in South African townships and beyond. What began as a deeply personal and community-centred project has evolved into a powerful archive that records the lives, relationships, and evolving identities of its participants.
The project emerged in response to the discrimination and violence frequently faced by LGBTQ+ communities in South Africa, including hate crimes and systemic marginalisation. By foregrounding their subjects with dignity and agency, Muholi creates images that resist narratives of victimhood and instead celebrate resilience, solidarity, and existence.
Muholi has described their mission as an attempt “to re-write a Black queer and trans visual history of South Africa for the world to know of our resistance and existence at the height of hate crimes in SA and beyond.” Through this work, the artist contributes to a broader project of cultural memory, ensuring that these stories are preserved and acknowledged.
Copyright: Elizabeth Carababus & Southern Guild.
Responding to news of the award, Muholi emphasised the collective nature of their achievement.
“This prize is not mine alone,” they said. “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.”
“For years, my work has been about visibility and resistance. It has been about creating an archive so that no one can say, ‘We did not know.’ When this honour comes, I receive it on behalf of my community, those who have been erased, those who are still here, and those who are yet to see themselves reflected with dignity.”
By awarding Muholi the 2026 Hasselblad Prize, the foundation recognises not only an extraordinary photographic practice but also a body of work that expands the possibilities of what photography can do, as testimony, archive, and form of resistance.
Zanele Muholi is a South African visual activist whose photographic practice centres on Black LGBTQIA+ lives. Their work has been exhibited internationally, including at Tate Modern, the Venice Biennale, and documenta. Muholi is the founder of the Muholi Art Institute (MAI).
