I had - for such a long time prior to the event - hassled my wife, daughter and son, all, to come with me to the #GuardianLocal private viewing of the Zanele Muholi exhibition, #Vukani/Rise, currently on glorious show at the Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool.
Wife was, sadly, at work this evening; daughter, studying Fine Art at a local college, was too stressed out by A2 to be able to do more than express her sincere but necessarily firm regret; son, jetlagged from recent flight, was fast asleep when I went into his room to give him one more chance before I left.
And so it was that I went by myself. And as so often happens (a genetic thing I think, from the peasant stock on my mother's side), I arrived far too early.
I was greeted by kindly souls, clearly in love with their work. I was soon introduced to Thomas, the very approachable Saughall-based curator, who began to talk and engage comfortably and congenially with myself - along with other early Guardian members - as we waited for everyone else to arrive.
One side of the gallery's shop was populated by real cameras: from reflex and 35mm-snapshop cameras to famous fisheye and latecomers' instant-film devices.
In the centre of the small space was a magnificent, refurbished, silver Polaroid - sat proud in a plexiglas box (as proud, in fact, as the people in the exhibition we were shortly to see), waiting for an Indiana Jones of phantasmagoria to eagerly pursue and ultimately, pleasurably, ensnare.
A fantastically complete kit of camera, film and flash.
A treasure trove of wonderful, other times.
Faces and Phases (2006–15) is an ongoing series of work, a living and growing collection of portraits. Zanele Muholi embarks on a journey of "visual activism" to ensure black queer and transgender visibility. Despite South Africa's progressive Constitution and twenty years of democracy, black lesbians and transgender men remain the targets of brutal hate crimes and so-called corrective rapes. More than 200 portraits, accompanied by moving testimonies, present a compelling statement about the lives and struggles of these individuals. They also comprise an unprecedented and invaluable archive: marking, mapping and preserving an often invisible community for posterity.
[Quote from: http://www.openeye.org.uk/main-exhibition/zanele-muholi/]
Thomas gradually brought us closer and more profoundly into Muholi's community. Most had names. Woman 9 from the right, however, fascinated me: a woman with just question marks against her number; a woman with no name at all; an unknown woman even, perhaps ...
And yet her gaze - as with all those wonderful faces and bodies reconstructed, protected and liberated by Muholi's (already mentioned) proud sense of community - looks out at us directly, and directly dares us to look back.
So then we dare.
And in that moment of daring, we enter, just a little bit, into a world we never thought could be ours. A world where people are people; where pride can be a tool of communication, not of browbeating. A world where people can choose to look at each other - and never, but never I insist, take umbrage at a glance of human love.
There were many other moments of glancing love, too, in that exhibition. The series Mo(u)rning played with image, religious iconography and the pure delight in words that multiply meaning. A fascinating triptych, meanwhile, showed love emerging tenderly from societally imposed moments of almost savage metaphor: moments where it seems a whole universe wishes to submerge such love, and yet people as proud as those on show refuse to postpone the opportunity Muholi enables - and makes possible - for them.
It was all over all too quickly. I asked permission to take some photos and tweet the event. I was given this permission. I tweeted as I could; as I should; as I was delighted to.
The journey home
Stand behind yellow lines? Well, of course, there are times we must, times we have to, times it's quite necessary not to do otherwise. There are other times, however, when it's quite unwise, when it's anything but what we should do.
Muholi shows us when to cross lines. But not just that. How to cross lines, without blurring them or confusing the issues.
She is a beautiful soul. And her community of living art, a beautiful beautiful heart of truth.
I missed my train by two minutes and so was awarded the opportunity to photograph James Street Station.
It was a fabulously colourful experience, as well. Yet it hardly approached the vibrant colour of Muholi's expansive black & white. A persistence of vision - in that persistently humane way which Jane Bown also exhibited throughout her professional career.
In the black & white embraces I was reminded of classic Hollywood: how the absence of colour forced us to focus on faces, lips, eyes and slightly, gently clenching muscles.
Yet Muholi can never be accused of forcing us to do anything.
Her profoundly competent camera technique does all the focussing we ever need (entirely on our behalf, too): behind - and around - the frame which we as observers, as watchers but never voyeurs, will construct - maybe despite ourselves, but never to contain or close down.
We are not forced, but encouraged. And in a world where everything lately has quite a price, this surely must remind us all it could all be something quite different.
