The Aesthetics of Global Protest

Abstract

While the form of visual activism currently being developed in the United States and Western Europe is more commonly linked to street protests or activist campaigning and is often explicitly anti-capitalist, in South Africa visual activism has a different epistemological history and contemporary form. In the South African context, much visual activism is closely linked to the fine art market and its associated institutions. This is exemplif ied by the queer black South African photographer Zanele Muholi. Going beyond the body of work available on Muholi, however, this chapter uses the works of other South African artists, namely FAKA and Robert Hamblin, a fine art photographer, to explore visual activism and the way in which it complicates/broadens conventional conceptions of activism.