The 2026 Hasselblad Award goes to Zanele Muholi
Haholi is the second South African to receive this most prestigious honour (the other being David Goldblatt in 2006).
Photography has the power to shift how we frame and see the world. Photographs have ended wars, exposed the powerful and have compelled us all to ask deeper questions about what we tacitly allow in our world.
South Africa has a long and proud legacy of having produced some of the bravest and most impactful photographers ever to have practiced the art form.
Photographers whose images helped to make the world feel strongly about injustice, serving as part of a collection of artistic expressions that acted as a catalyst for unimaginable social change.
Zanele Muholi's work continues this 'visual activist' tradition, and they have now been recognised by the Hasselblad Foundation and awarded the 2026 Hasselblad International Award in Photography.
Haholi is the second South African to receive this most prestigious honour (the other being David Goldblatt in 2006).
Zanele Muholi stands as one of the most influential contemporary photographers, with an impact that reaches far beyond the art world. They use portraiture to articulate and celebrate the presence, depth, and dignity of the Black LGBTQIA+ community in South Africa and the rest of the world. Born in 1972 during the apartheid regime, they are highly aware of the power of narration in the face of systematic violence. Muholi’s photographs are formally compelling, employing composition, colour, greyscale, and lighting to create an adept visual language that holds both strength and vulnerability. The portraits foreground individuals with a direct and dignified gaze, challenging prejudice and discrimination while creating alternative visual histories. Activism and community work is an integral part of their practice, which combines political urgency and formal mastery, making Muholi a central figure in global queer visual culture.
A picture is worth a thousand words
In the business of shifting mindsets and reframing concepts to enable social transformation the arts (which obviously includes photography) is an effective lever to drive an emotional response to an entrenched status quo.
If visions can be captured as art, rather than those yawn-inducing paragraphs that most companies insist on putting at the beginning of their annual reports, imagine how much more they would inspire everyone to create better futures.
Congratulations Zanele Muholi to you and the countless partners that have collaborated with you to create this eye-opening portfolio of images. May the impact you are having long continue.
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Dale Berning Sawa