January 24 – March 30, 2019
The Women’s Mobile Museum, a year-long collaboration between South African artists Zanele Muholi and Lindeka Qampi and ten Philadelphia women, concludes with an exhibition that explores representation, remembrance and identity. Renée Mussai, the Head Curator at Autograph ABP London, has served as the curatorial mentor for the year-long project and series of exhibitions which challenges the social and economic barriers of the traditional art world. In keeping with the Museum’s mission of accessibility, visually impaired audiences can experience the show through an audio tour, and Braille guides. The inaugural issue of the Women’s Mobile Museum Magazine, a publication featuring photography, essays, interviews and poetry, are available for purchase in the gallery.
Works from the Women’s Mobile Museum are also in an exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from December 22, 2018—March 30, 2019.
Follow the WMM on Instagram @womensmobilemuseum
For questions, please contact Lori Waselchuk at lori@philaphotoarts.org.
Zanele Muholi is a South African visual activist and photographer. Muholi’s self-proclaimed mission is “to re-write a Black queer and trans visual history of South Africa for the world to know of our resistance and existence at the height of hate crimes in South Africa and beyond.” Muholi co-founded the Forum for Empowerment of Women (FEW) in 2002 and Inkanyiso (www.inkanyiso.org), a forum for queer and visual (activist) media, in 2009. Muholi studied Advanced Photography at the Market Photo Workshop in Newtown, Johannesburg, and in 2009 completed an MFA: Documentary Media at Ryerson University in Toronto. In 2013, they became an honorary professor at the University of the Arts/Hochschule für Künste Bremen. In 2017, Muholi was bestowed France’s highest cultural honor, the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts des Lettres. Recent exhibitions include the traveling show Somnyama Ngonyama (2017-2020), which premiered at Autograph, London, and currently on view at Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta. Their latest monograph was published in 2018 by Aperture Foundation, New York. Their work was shown at Performa, New York (2017); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2017); Brooklyn Museum, New York (2015); they were also included in the South African pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale (2013); the São Paolo Biennial (2010); and documenta 13, Kassel (2013).
Renée Mussai is Senior Curator and Head of Curatorial, Archive and Research at Autograph, London. A scholar-curator with a special interest in African, Black European and diasporic lens-based practices, Mussai publishes and lectures internationally on photography, visual culture, curatorial activism and cultural politics. She has been a regular guest curator and former non-resident fellow at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University, and is presently a Research Associate in the Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre, University of Johannesburg and part-time PhD candidate in Art History at University College London. Her writing has appeared in numerous artist monographs, anthologies and journals; recent exhibitions and publications include the critically acclaimed and internationally touring gallery installations, ‘Black Chronicles’ (2014-2019), ‘Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness’ (2017-2021), and ‘Phoebe Boswell: The Space Between Things’ (2018-2019). Mussai holds under- and postgraduate degrees in Photography from the University of the Arts, and previously studied at the University of Vienna, Austria.
Lindeka Qampi is a self-taught photographer who works primarily in the genre of street photography. In 2006, she made photography her career after joining a consortium of photographers known as Ilisu Labantu. Since 2012, Qampi has worked as a project facilitator alongside fellow South African photographer Zanele Muholi. In 2014, they co-organized Photo XP at Aurora Girls School, introducing photography as a life skill and empowering tool to young women. In 2015, Qampi began photographing herself and immediate family with a new series of work entitled Inside My Heart. Qampi’s work has been exhibited internationally and is part of the collections in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Qampi is the co-recipient of the Brave Award (with Muholi, 2016), and the Mbokodo Award for Creative Photography (2015).
Major support for the WOMEN’S MOBILE MUSEUM has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, with additional support from the William Penn Foundation and the VIA Art Fund.
The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage is a multidisciplinary grantmaker and hub for knowledge-sharing, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, dedicated to fostering a vibrant cultural community in Greater Philadelphia. The Center invests in ambitious, imaginative, and catalytic work that showcases the region’s cultural vitality and enhances public life, and engages in an exchange of ideas concerning artistic and interpretive practice with a broad network of cultural practitioners and leaders. For more information, visit www.pewcenterarts.org.
The William Penn Foundation, founded in 1945 by Otto and Phoebe Haas, is dedicated to improving the quality of life in the Greater Philadelphia region through efforts that increase educational opportunities for children from low-income families, ensure a sustainable environment, foster creativity that enhances civic life, and advance philanthropy in the Philadelphia region. In partnership with others, the Foundation works to advance opportunity, ensure sustainability, and enable effective solutions. Since inception, the Foundation has made nearly 10,000 grants totaling over $1.6 billion.
VIA Art Fund is a non-profit organization where art patrons join forces as partners in a new model of philanthropy to support Visionary Initiatives in Art.
