South African photographer Zanele Moholi: My mother worked for a white family. I remember the pools I wasn’t allowed to swim in Zanele Moholi

gAnnelie Moholy has received the 2026 Hasselblad Prize. The South African artist, who identifies as non-binary, now takes his place among the pantheon of the world’s greatest art photographers, from Carrie Mae Weems, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Wolfgang Tillmans and Sophie Calle, to the genre’s forefathers, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Ansel Adams.

It’s the kind of tribute that codifies the breathless reception with which Moholy’s works have been greeted thus far. When their 2020 survey show at London’s Tate Modern was hampered by pandemic visitor restrictions, the exhibition brought it back four years later. One critic likened their attractive self-portraits to those of Rembrandt.

Moholy isn’t overly impressed, and doesn’t see the award as a win. “I can’t say it’s a winner, because that’s like entering a competition,” they say. “This is more recognition, it’s a dream for most of us who do photography or who envision work that often doesn’t get recognized. It’s an honor for our people, for the Black LGBTQIA+ community from home — it’s an honor for all of us, the LGBT community in Africa.”

That an artist greets this kind of personal career with the word “we” speaks volumes about the beating heart of his work. Moholy has spent nearly 30 years not only documenting the people they love, but commissioning, empowering, supporting and teaching: working for and with the group. “I’m made by society. I’m shaped by women, who are the forces in everything I do. I move with the community, with or without resources, with or without recognition. That’s how it is. I love my people. I love being part of movements, because that’s where we heal, really. It doesn’t make sense to me to be alone.”

Muholi was born in 1972 in the town of Umlazi, southwest of Durban in KwaZulu-Natal province, in one of the bloodiest moments of apartheid. The artist was four years old when the 1976 Soweto Uprising saw schoolchildren take to the streets in protest against being forced to study in Afrikaans. Up to 1,000 were killed by the end of the year. Moholi had just started primary school when anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko was tortured to death in 1977.

Moholy’s mother, Bester, would have been 90 this year. She has been a domestic worker for 40 years, often living away from home. “I remember being at home without my mother, because she worked for a white family. And the image I remember is that she was at the workplaces that had swimming pools that I wasn’t allowed to swim in, and she was reminding me: ‘Don’t come near, because this is work and it wouldn’t be good for the lady to see you.’ I remember the dogs being trained to bite the blacks. I remember the different beaches, the north for the whites, the south for the blacks.

Muholi also recalls the challenges around her education, the segregated Bantu education “which led me to nowhere, and how I wanted so badly to go to Durban Girls and couldn’t qualify because there was no one to guarantee that school fees would be paid on time.”

While lazy or unthinking descriptions often end with “the poor” to describe a background like Moholy’s, the artist instead deliberately chooses “the people of limited means,” underscoring the systemic inequality at work. They also emphasize what they have gained at each stage: the urgency to do it yourself – the sense of responsibility – to continue the work, driven by the confidence that it can truly change people’s lives. As a child, Moholi was looked after by aunts, neighbors and the wider town community. This feeling of belonging to a built and chosen family expands in itself throughout their work.

Their long-running photo series, Faces and Stages, documents professionals and experts who play critical roles in the LGBT community. “Lerato Domse” (Kwathema Springs, Johannesburg), filmed in 2010, portrays Moholi’s former producer, whom they describe as “my baby/niece/friend, the person I spent most of my creative time with.” But more importantly, Dumse is a photojournalist in her own right. Moholy’s ability to capture a person’s presence is remarkable.

“I always ask people to look good,” they say, “because most of the pictures that were previously taken by visual anthropologists really distorted Africa. You often find that the photographer’s name is there but the person being photographed, their name is not there. I try to fix that and make sure that we do something amazingly beautiful.”

In 2007, Moholi shot a series of photographs of Miss De Vine, a dancer who worked in gay bars and brothels in Johannesburg. Moholy was fascinated by how these artists were cultural activists without knowing they were one: “Their performances make people happy; they change the lives of those who thought they were alone.”

Shooting Miss D’Vine outdoors with landscape was about “breaking down the closet” and letting the subject be seen. In one photo, the dancer wears a beaded isigi, a Zulu maiden skirt traditionally worn by young girls during the red dance, when they dance for the Zulu king. “Trans people couldn’t be part of those ceremonies because they’re either pre-process, and therefore ineligible, or if they went there, they might be seen as something else that they have nothing to do with.”

Moholi cherishes this image, captured on film, for many reasons, not least because it is one of the few images that survived the brutal robbery of more than 20 hard drives of their work from their home in Cape Town in 2012. The thieves left behind several expensive items (a television, a printer, a projector, a camera), leading the artist to suspect a homophobic motive.

However, Moholi was not afraid. “We are a growing nation,” they said at the time. “There is a struggle to be had here.” Losing this job cannot become an excuse to stop working: “I have a responsibility. I have a duty.”

Somnyama Ngonyama is a series of self-portraits, many of which were inspired by Moholi’s mother. The artist appears in bold clothing: here a headdress made of dozens of combs or twenty wooden clothes pegs; There is a headpiece and neck piece made from flat bike tires. The images pose pointed questions about beauty and fashion traditions: “What is beauty to you may not be the same to someone else. What constitutes fashion in the West may be ritual to us, or part of the culture and traditions of the Bantu people.”

The title of the series means “Salute to the Dark Lioness” in Moholi’s native language, IsiZulu. “The naming is political,” Moholy says. Photography is often seen as a Western thing. “But when we think, when we plan, when we produce, when we play our music, it’s in Zulu – or whatever your mother tongue is.”

In “Gulel,” which means “the one who thinks deeply,” the artist lies naked on a rug, holding inflated plastic bags around his body like silk balloons. The pose depicts the ancient curves of a beautiful nude photo against the backdrop of stacked newspapers. “It was in my room, a few days before I had my fibroids removed. I was counting down the days until this big operation, thinking deeply about what was about to happen and how my body was going to change for worse or for better. It made me think about sexuality and diseases that consume us. When you have fibroids, it’s as if something in your blood is being consumed by these forces that live inside your body, caused by trauma or stress. So I was thinking deeply about the meaning of self and belonging and existence, you know – My experience, my pain, my survival.

When creating Ntozakhe II (Parktown), Moholy was thinking of the Statue of Liberty and improvised a headpiece from a pair of jeans, then used the hair bun as a crown. “Ntozakhe may be your ‘prized possession,’” Moholi says. “It’s the main cover of my book. To have every beautiful black girl on the cover is an honor. I’m surprised when I look at myself — I want to connect but disconnect at the same time because when I photographed myself, I never thought that this photo would become iconic, after seeing photos of black women taken by other people.”

Although the past is painful and despicable, Moholi sees her camera as a weapon, photographs, and a responsibility “to change everything that is unfair to our bodies and ourselves.”

Zanele Moholi is the winner of the 2026 Hasselblad Prize. Their work will be on display at the Hasselblad Center in Gothenburg from 10 October.