Artist Zanele Muholi's photography of LGBTQI Africans stolen
‘I’ve dedicated my entire life to documenting queer lives. I wanted to make sure I document (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex) lives. All my major projects are gone.’ -Zanele Muholi, Cape Town
May 15, 2012
Photographer Zanele Muholi is devastated after more than 20 external hard drives were stolen from her Vredehoek flat. She believes her work in which documents the lives of black lesbians, may have been targeted because little else was stolen.
Loss, lost, violated, ripped, stripped, ransacked... ngilahlekelwe.
On the 26th April I returned from Seoul, Korea where my documentary Difficult Love was shown at the 14th International Woman's Film Festival.
All went ok until I got home only to receive bad news from Liesl about burglary at our flat on 20.04.2012.
I've lost all the work I produced from 2008 - 2012. Also backups were stolen.
I thought of the day I spoke with another friend about alternative storage. Now it is too late.
I feel like a breathing zombie right now.
I don't even know where to start. I'm wasted.
I've sent out a note to friends to tell them about the incident.
The person/s got access to the flat via the toilet window, broke the burglar guard and got away with my cameras, lenses, memory cards and external hard drives, laptop, cellphones...
Whoever ransacked the place got away with more than 20 external hard drives with the most valuable content I've ever produced.
I am hoping that a few of my good friends are willing to go to pawn shops or to other places where this type of equipment is sold. I do not even want to know who the thief is.
I need the hard drives: ranging from toshiba, Western, Samsung at 320GB - 1TB each--these are the brands and sizes of hard drive I am looking for.
They would have gone into the pawn shop since 20 April. I am willing to pay a reward for the return of those ext. hard drives.
I certainly would pay more than the pawn shop can sell them for.
Thanking you in advance.
ZM
"In Solidartiy with Zanele we would like to galvanise support from the global community to help replace her equipment. We know there is nothing we can do from NYC to recover the works stolen, but we can make sure that her future work continues to be produced and shared. Please read Zanele's words below and help out however you are able."
~ Palm Wine, NYC
"We are LGBTQ Nigerians who believe that human rights and dignity are our birthrights. We have created this space to collect and document our individual and shared stories in the hope that we can build authentic relationships with ourselves and each other, heal from our generational cycles and patterns of isolation and oppression and envision a future that embraces us all."