Fikile Mazambani reviews Faces and Phases by South African queer photographer, Zanele Muholi In her second installation Faces and Phases, due out in August 2010, Zanele Muholi who is known for  straying  from the conservative and the conventional to get  her point across, lives up to her name.   Passion meets purpose in this body of black [...]

Nearly 200 years has passed and 16 years after the end of Apartheid South Africa and still the exploitation of Sara Baartman continues. And where is this taking place? In a shop in Johannesburg were china ornaments of Sara Baartman’s body are on sale amongst household wares and “colonial throw-back domestic workers uniforms. This vile [...]

I see the wisdom of eternities in ample thighs belying their presence as adornments to the temples of my sisters old souls breath in the comfort of chocolate thickness that suffocates Africa ’s angels who dance to the rhythm of the universe’s womb though they cannot feel its origins in their veins Blessed am I [...]

Sandra Laing can’t remember who took her away from the whites only school when she was kicked out. She can’t remember if her Dad was a dickhead who hurt her mother. She can’t remember the details around her mother’s threats of suicide. She can’t remember the names of girls she was friends with at the [...]

I just got finished reading Judith Stone’s book, When She Was White: The True Story of a Family Divided by Race (here is a video of the author reading from the book so that I don’t have to link to Amazon). It is the story of Sandra Laing and her family. Sandra was a girl [...]

I feel so proud and over joyed to be writing this post today. In spite of the struggle against transphobia and homophobia two exciting ground breaking pieces of work are happening in Africa which celebrate Transgender lives on the continent. The first is the launch of Trans: Transgender Life Stories from South Africa – a [...]

In 1996 at the age of 24, South African lesbian film maker, Shelly Barry was shot through the spine and was paralysed from the chest down. In this courageous and powerful essay she tells of her journey to reclaim and once again love her body. She writes about society’s perceptions of people with disability which [...]