As the youngest of eight, and the child of a mother who was a domestic worker during apartheid in South Africa, Muholi’s work actively engages in the history, as well as the ongoing discrimination against, the LGBTQIA+ community in South Africa. Muholi challenges the violent and hierarchical practices ingrained in the ethnographic function and colonial legacy of photography and archival practices. Muholi’s commitment to documenting the diversity of gender and sexual orientations includes cultivating relationships with the participants themselves.

Muholi cofounded the Forum for the Empowerment of Women (FEW) in 2003. Shortly after, they studied advanced photography at the Market Photo Workshop in Newtown, Johannesburg, and received an MFA in documentary media from Ryerson University in 2009. In 2013, they were appointed Honorary Professor of Video and Photography at the University of the Arts Bremen in Germany. Their work has been presented at institutions and in biennials internationally, including Tate Modern, London; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Norval Foundation, Cape Town; the 55th Venice Biennale; and dOCUMENTA 13. The Studio Museum in Harlem first acquired Muholi’s work in 2015.