Zanele Muholi wins the Kraszna-Krausz Book Award

“I’m reclaiming my blackness, which I feel is continuously performed by the privileged other,” said Zanele Muholi, in an interview with BJP-online in July 2017. Almost two years later, the South-African photographer’s book of bold self-portraits, Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness (Aperture), has won the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation’s Best Photography Book Award.

Born in 1972 in Umlazi, a township close to Durban, South Africa, Muholi came to prominence in the early 2000s with her bold, political portraits of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and instersexual people in South Africa. Muholi defines herself as a visual activist, using photography to articulate contemporary identity politics.

The photographer wins the prize over two other shortlisted publications, Laia Abril’s On Abortion (Dewi Lewis Publishing), and Deana Lawson: An Aperture Monograph. In her winning project, she uses her own body to confront the politics of race and gender, questioning how the black female body is shown and perceived.

Along with the prize for best photobook, Jane Giles was awarded with the Best Moving Image Book Award, for her crowdfunded project Scala Cinema 1978-1993 (FAB Press). The book is a tribute to London’s most infamous and influential cinema during a post-punk, pre-internet era. Both winners have been awarded with a £5,000 cash prize.

“Due to the high calibre of entries for the 2019 prize, our judges faced an extremely difficult decision. We congratulate Zanele Muholi and Jane Giles on maintaining the highest standards for books of photography and the moving image,” said Sir Brian Pomeroy, Chairman of the Kraszna Krausz Foundation.

www.kraszna-krausz.org.uk

Zanele Muholi, Ntozakhe II, Parktown, Johannesburg, 2016; from Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness (Aperture, 2018) © Zanele Muholi, courtesy of Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town/Johannesburg, and Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York
Zanele Muholi, Somnyama IV, Oslo, 2015; from Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness (Aperture, 2018) © Zanele Muholi, courtesy of Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town/Johannesburg, and Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York
Zanele Muholi, Phindile I, Paris, 2014; from Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness (Aperture, 2018) © Zanele Muholi, courtesy of Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town/Johannesburg, and Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York
Scala Cinema 1978-1993 by Jane Giles, published by FAB Press © Jane Giles
Scala Cinema 1978-1993 by Jane Giles, published by FAB Press © Jane Giles
Scala Cinema 1978-1993 by Jane Giles, published by FAB Press © Jane Giles
Marigold Warner

Deputy Editor

Marigold Warner worked as an editor at BJP between 2018 and 2023. She studied English Literature and History of Art at the University of Leeds, followed by an MA in Magazine Journalism from City, University of London. Her work has been published by titles including the Telegraph Magazine, Huck, Elephant, Gal-dem, The Face, Disegno, and the Architects Journal.