Vanesa Medina-Godoy | University of Birmingham (original) (raw)
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Papers by Vanesa Medina-Godoy
Global Histories: A Student Journal, 2022
This article investigates the work of South African photographer and visual activist Zanele Muhol... more This article investigates the work of South African photographer and visual activist Zanele Muholi. It argues that what makes their visual project successful is its engagement with the multiple histories and discourses that inform Black queer identities and experiences in South Africa. To illustrate this point, I focus on a little-discussed image called ID Crisis from 2003, a black and white photograph of a Black woman binding her breasts. Using this picture as a starting point, the article explores the ways in which Muholi’s photography brings viewers into contact with transnational histories of Black queerness, from Western colonialism to Apartheid in South Africa. Throughout this discussion, I use the idea of (in)visibility as a guiding concept, understood as a simultaneous visibility and invisibility that allows Muholi to allude to several historical narratives without directly reproducing them. As such, it is this (in)visible articulation of history that allows Muholi to engage with Black queer histories and re-contextualise them from a Black queer perspective.
Global Histories: A Student Journal, 2022
This article investigates the work of South African photographer and visual activist Zanele Muhol... more This article investigates the work of South African photographer and visual activist Zanele Muholi. It argues that what makes their visual project successful is its engagement with the multiple histories and discourses that inform Black queer identities and experiences in South Africa. To illustrate this point, I focus on a little-discussed image called ID Crisis from 2003, a black and white photograph of a Black woman binding her breasts. Using this picture as a starting point, the article explores the ways in which Muholi’s photography brings viewers into contact with transnational histories of Black queerness, from Western colonialism to Apartheid in South Africa. Throughout this discussion, I use the idea of (in)visibility as a guiding concept, understood as a simultaneous visibility and invisibility that allows Muholi to allude to several historical narratives without directly reproducing them. As such, it is this (in)visible articulation of history that allows Muholi to engage with Black queer histories and re-contextualise them from a Black queer perspective.