Africa Is a Country

Zanele Muholi’s “Mo(u)rning” | Exhibition

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

Zanele Muholi’s “Mo(u)rning” | Exhibition

By
Dan Moshenberg

On Thursday, July 26, the Michael Stevenson Gallery in Cape Town had an opening: Mo(u)rning. Photographic and other works by Zanele Muholi. Muholi had lost much of her work a couple months earlier in a more than suspicious burglary, and so the exhibition was a meditation on mourning, the processes of receiving and releasing the dead and the lost, and morning, the processes of a new day, of another new day. Those who know Muholi’s work will not be surprised to hear the exhibition was brilliant. Rooms upon rooms of portraiture, of lived experience, of love. Video installation merged with photography merged with graffiti and poetry. One wall held, or exposed, Makhosazana Xaba’s poem, “For Eudy”:

For Eudy
I mentioned her name the other day
but blank stares returned my gaze
while all I could see was:
The open field in Tornado
Open hatred on the field.
I thought I could explain
but the rising anger blocked my throat
cause all I was thinking was:
This tornado of crimes
is not coming to an end.
Did anyone read a manifesto
that has plans to stop hate crimes?
Which party can we trust to bring
this tornado of crimes to an end,
an end we’ve been demanding?

How should we pen that cross
and put the paper in its place
while we remember painfully
that the open field in Tornado
is forever marked by her blood?
Name me one politician
who can stand up and talk
about the urgency to stop these crimes,
one who can be counted, to call them
what they are.  Name me one.
Go, celebrate Freedom Day,
while we gather and stand
on this open field in Tornado
shouting for the world to hear:
Crimes of hatred must stop!

The next wall had the following scrawl:

Somber? Grim? Hopeless?

No. The night of the opening, the space among the pictures, the testimonies, and the videos was a space of celebration, of hugs and winks and laughter and more hugs, a space of joy. When the communities of local Black lesbians and their friends came together, the event created the joyous space. It was an opening. For one night, in South Africa, the work of mourning is the work of morning.

Further Reading

After the uprising

Years into Cameroon’s Anglophone conflict, the rebellion faces internal fractures, waning support, and military pressure—raising the question of what future, if any, lies ahead for Ambazonian aspirations.

In search of Saadia

Who was Saadia, and why has she been forgotten? A search for one woman’s story opens up bigger questions about race, migration, belonging, and the gaps history leaves behind.

Binti, revisited

More than two decades after its release, Lady Jaydee’s debut album still resonates—offering a window into Tanzanian pop, gender politics, and the sound of a generation coming into its own.

The bones beneath our feet

A powerful new documentary follows Evelyn Wanjugu Kimathi’s personal and political journey to recover her father’s remains—and to reckon with Kenya’s unfinished struggle for land, justice, and historical memory.

What comes after liberation?

In this wide-ranging conversation, the freedom fighter and former Constitutional Court justice Albie Sachs reflects on law, liberation, and the unfinished work of building a just South Africa.

The cost of care

In Africa’s migration economy, women’s labor fuels households abroad while their own needs are sidelined at home. What does freedom look like when care itself becomes a form of exile?

The memory keepers

A new documentary follows two women’s mission to decolonize Nairobi’s libraries, revealing how good intentions collide with bureaucracy, donor politics, and the ghosts of colonialism.

Making films against amnesia

The director of the Oscar-nominated film ‘Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat’ reflects on imperial violence, corporate warfare, and how cinema can disrupt the official record—and help us remember differently.