Book cover design by Grégoire Pujade-Lauraine, based on the 2018 volume by Duncan Whyte.

Powerful Portraiture and Poetry About Identity and Blackness

A look at Zanele Muholi’s Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness, Volume II.

Writer Lauren Edwards
Photographer Zanele Muholi

In 2018, many were captivated by the striking photography in Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness, a collection of self-portraits by the highly celebrated artist Zanele Muholi, shot internationally, using various materials and objects from those places. Now comes the second volume, an extension of the visual artist and activist’s exploration of the self and Blackness.

The collection of works speaks to events and experiences from history and to the present, and Muholi has received numerous accolades and awards, including a honorary doctorates, arts awards, and exhibitions at the Venice Biennale, Sydney Biennale, and São Paulo Biennale. Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness earned the 2019 Kraszna-Krausz Photography Book Award.

“My practice as a visual activist looks at Black resistance—existence as well as insistence,” Muholi says. Born in Umlazi, South Africa, she is also the founder of the Inkanyiso forum for queer and visual media and co-founder of the Forum for the Empowerment of Women.

Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness, Volume II, published by New-York based Aperture, features 80 new photographs and written works from art curators, poets, artists, and authors—including Sophia Al-Maria, Natasha Becker, Phoebe Boswell, Tina M. Campt, Natasha Ginwala, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Aluta Humbane, Ntsiki Jacobs, Khanyisile Mbongwa, Renée Mussai, Porsha Olayiwola, Lola Olufemi, and Legacy Russell—as well as an extended interview with the artist.