A photographic archive can quickly transform into a repository of what has already occurred. Faces and Phases has resisted this notion for two decades.
Ever since Zanele Muholi initiated the series in 2006, they have been documenting members of the Black LGBTQIA+ community in South Africa and beyond, amassing a substantial archive that not only records a life but allows it to unfold. Now, 20 years after the initial portraits, Khululekani returns the series to Johannesburg, city where the series was born, for another showing.
Curated by the Muholi Art Institute in conjunction with the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER), the exhibition will run from 8 September to 8 October 2026 at WiSER, Wits University. The anniversary comes at a critical juncture for Muholi, who has also been named the 2026 Hasselblad Award laureate for their work that has placed visibility, dignity and representation at the forefront of photography.
Twenty years in the same frame
When Faces and Phases started, it had a noble goal that sought to bring the existence of Black LGBTQIA+ to the limelight at a moment when they were often ignored, misrepresented or placed on the margins of mainstream discourse.
Two decades later, the project has grown in scope and is now a comprehensive photographic archive that retains its focus on the singular moment of encounter.
The author focuses on the collective history represented by the selected photographs, which show the series’ evolution and its impact on the subjects. Some of them are captured for the second time in the frames, which adds a unique value to the pictures. A single photograph cannot tell the story of a decade.
A face that looks at the camera from the 2006 series only exists next to its twin from the more recent collection. The images now contain time, in addition to the gaze that burns from their centers.
The archive is alive because people are
Faces and Phases is indeed an intriguing archival work of art.
Archives, generally, are closely tied to the concept of preservation. They are a collection of evidence, a set of established histories, and a place where things are stored for posterity. But what makes Muholi’s archive so fascinating is the concept of return.
To return to someone means recognizing that the person in the photograph has had other lives. It means aging, evolving, changing and even dying. They may have new relationships, new communities and new identities.
The archive changes as they do.
The Muholi Art Institute notes that the series ‘Faces and Phases’ is concerned with identity, transformation and the human experience, with each portrait revealing something of the personal, social and cultural journey of the person in the photograph. As such, Faces and Phases feels less like a collection of historical artifacts and more like a living memory.
Returning to where it began
There is something fitting about celebrating the twentieth anniversary in Johannesburg.
It is the city in which the first portraits were captured, and as such, returning to it contributes to this project’s sense of circularity and revisiting. The series has since toured internationally; however, Khululekani asks the audience to see it in the place where it began, to experience it from the perspective of its origin.
Furthermore, the name itself, Khululekani, suggests themes of growth and return, and so it is no surprise that as the series returns to where it began, the cycle continues.
Twenty years is long enough for a photograph to change: to move from capturing a beginning to becoming part of an end. To look at a portrait from this series and see the subject not as they once were, but as if for the first time, as a person they have since become.
What photography can remember
The importance of Faces and Phases goes far beyond art.
For those in the community whose lives had been disregarded or completely erased before being brought back to life through Muholi’s camera, it is a chance to represent and remember. The Hasselblad Foundation recognized the artist’s contribution to the visibility of the black LGBTQIA+ community through the creation of alternative realities.
This is why their acknowledgment is particularly special to me.
We have here a photographic archive that has been growing for two decades and will continue to do so. It provides visibility, recognition, and reassurance to marginalised groups that their existence matters, long after the photo was taken. Faces and Phases allow us not to dwell on the past but to continue building the future.
By capturing these portraits, Khululekani opens the door to new ones, and the cycle continues. The exhibition thus commemorates the twentieth anniversary of the series while at the same time suggesting that there is more to come. The faces in the photos are no longer in the past tense. Muholi’s series will continue to make history for twenty more years.
