Abstract

CABANILLAS, Natalia. Normalizing Black Lesbian Existence. Visual activism in Free Gender and Zanele Muholi, Cape Town, South Africa. Rev. Estud. Fem. [online]. 2016, vol.24, n.3, pp.941-958. ISSN 1806-9584.  https://doi.org/10.1590/1806-9584-2016v24n3p941.

The article analises how Free Gender activism - a black lesbians' organization from Khayelitsha, Cape Town - and Zanele Muholi's art-ivism (South Africa) are intertwined in handcrafting, normalizing and individualizing black lesbian existences. How Free Gender public interventions and its participation in community structures is in a productive dialogue with the massive production of portraits and intimacy scenes in Muholi's photography (Phases and Faces and Beloved Series). How this two projects collaborate to produce new regimes of visuality, involving the politics of looking, and challenging the colonial archive and its stereotyped representations of black women sexualities.

Keywords : LGTBI activism; Black women; Sexuality; Archive.

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