World-renowned visual activist and photographer Prof. Zanele Muholi presents Brave Beauties: Stories of Identity, Visibility & Courage, launched on 20 August 2026 and will run until 24 September 2026 at Women’s Jail, Constitution Hill, Johannesburg. 

Curated by Africa’s most decorated transgender voice, Yaya Mavundla, herself a participant in the Brave Beauties series. Brave Beauties is an ongoing and empowering photographic essay by acclaimed South African visual activist Prof. Sir Zanele Muholi, documenting and celebrating transgender women and gender-nonconforming individuals in South Africa since 2014. The exhibition marks a historic moment: for the first time, the project is presented as a dedicated solo exhibition, allowing Muholi’s powerful visual archive of Black LGBTQIA+ lives to be experienced. Launched during Women’s Month and extending into Heritage Month, the exhibition asks urgent questions about gender, identity, representation, belonging and whose stories become part of South Africa’s collective memory. 

At its centre is the visibility of transgender women as women, Brave Beauties challenges narrow and exclusionary ideas of womanhood by celebrating transgender women’s dignity, beauty, resilience, joy, self-expression and agency. Rather than allowing their lives to be defined by stereotypes, discrimination or violence, Muholi’s portraits foreground personhood and self-determination. 

Muholi speaking about the importance of this exhibition says; “Brave Beauties challenges the erasure of trans women’ stories and insists that their lives, resistance and contributions belong in the visual and historical archive.” Muholi further mentions that transgender women’s existence must be documented, preserved and remembered as part of the true and diverse history of African woman. 

The photographs and stories of Brave Beauties do more than document individuals. Together, they create a living archive of people who have insisted on their right to exist, to be visible and to define themselves. The project responds to historical absences in representation by creating a space where transgender women participate in shaping how they are seen and remembered. 

In the context of Heritage Month, the exhibition challenges the idea that heritage exists only in monuments, institutions or histories of the past. Heritage is also living it is created through people’s lives, relationships, memories, struggles, creativity and contributions. The inclusion of transgender women in this archive is therefore an assertion of belonging and historical presence. Their lives are part of South Africa’s social fabric and evolving cultural heritage. 

The setting of Women’s Jail at Constitution Hill deepens this significance. A site marked by imprisonment, resistance and the struggle for freedom, it provides a profound context for portraits that speak to another form of liberation: the freedom to define oneself, to live openly, to belong, and to tell one’s own story. Mavundla’s role as curator brings an especially intimate perspective. As both curator and participant in Brave Beauties, she approaches the exhibition from within the archive itself, creating a dialogue between the portraits and broader questions of identity, visibility, courage and belonging. 

“Having been part of Brave Beauties since its inception, I have witnessed firsthand the power of seeing our lives, identities and stories documented. As both a participant and curator, I understand the responsibility of protecting this archive and ensuring that our stories are not erased, distorted or told without us. Brave Beauties is more than photography, it is an act of visibility, resistance and self-determination. It gives us the power to be seen, to be celebrated and, most importantly, to define how we are remembered.” says Yaya Mavundla

The exhibition ultimately asks: Who is remembered? Who is represented? Who belongs within the heritage of South Africa? And what happens when those historically marginalised are not merely included in the archive, but become active participants in creating it? 

Brave Beauties is an archive of presence, a testament to courage and an affirmation that transgender women are an integral part of South Africa’s living heritage. 

Exhibition Open until: 24 September 2026 

Venue: Women’s Jail, Constitution Hill, Johannesburg

Curator: Yaya Mavundla

Artist: Prof. Zanele Muholi 

Contact maiexhibitions@gmail.com for more information or get in touch with our team at the Visitor’s Centre – 011 381 3100 | info@conhill.org.za to get access. 

Zanele Muholi & Yaya Mavundla are available for interviews; Please contact Wakhe Sebenza on +27735585876