Guest-edited by visual activist Zanele Muholi with support from the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung. Der Greif Issue 19 asks what environment means when we stop seeing it as something outside of ourselves: You are the environment. Your body is a landscape, your face a geography, your breath an atmosphere. — Guest-edited by Zanele Muholi, this issue gathers international submissions from photographers, writers, and poets who refuse the borders between self and surroundings, between the personal and the political. The selected works have both bones and flesh: form and content, skill and lived experience. Together they follow a single thread: Because of environment, I am. Because of you, I am. Because of them, I am. SoftcoverDimensions: 148 x 210 x 9 mm (DIN A5)100 pages215 gPrint run: 2000 copiesEnglish Zanele Muholi Zanele Muholi is a celebrated visual activist, humanitarian, and art practitioner invested in educational activism, community outreach, social work, and youth development. They focus on the documentation and celebration of the lives of South Africa’s Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, Queer, and intersex communities. Born in Umlazi, Durban, and now based in Cape Town, Muholi studied Advanced Photography at the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg (2001–2003) with David Goldblatt and completed an MFA in Documentary Media at Ryerson University, Toronto (2009). They have received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Liège, Belgium (2023), and were appointed Honorary Professor at the University of the Arts in Bremen, Germany (2013). Since 2006, Muholi has documented the lives and resilience of South Africa's Black LGBTQIA+ communities. Their ongoing portrait series Faces and Phases captures Black lesbian and transgender individuals, building a visual history and positive imagery rooted in resistance and mutual recognition. In Somnyama Ngonyama (Hail the Dark Lioness), Muholi turns the lens on themselves, creating self-portraits that reclaim Blackness and challenge dominant representations of Black women through experimenting with different characters and archetypes referring to specific events in South Africa’s political history. By exaggerating the darkness of their skin tone, Muholi reclaims their Blackness and offsets the culturally dominant images of Black women in the media today. Muholi's mission has always extended beyond the gallery, having shown their work in major museums worldwide both as solo exhibitions and in group shows. In 2002, they co-founded the Forum for Empowerment of Women (FEW), responding to the needs and safety of Black lesbian women. In 2009, they launched Inkanyiso, a platform for queer visual media, and in 2021 established the Muholi Arts Institute (MAI) in Cape Town. 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.
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