The Here Project

200 stunning images in this companion book to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art exhibition celebrate 70 LGBTQ+ African artists

We are here. This powerful volume platforms artists whose work reflects their identities and experiences as African LGBTQ+ individuals. Based on years of close collaboration and dialogue with these artists and their communities, The Here Project demonstrates how they are a part of a larger, joyful story of African art history. At the same time, the LGBTQ+ experience in Africa is not monolithic. Political, social, and cultural freedoms and limits vary widely across both the continent and the wider diaspora, and the artists represented here help readers recognize that diversity.

More than 200 stunning images represent a range of media, including painting, photography, digital art, fashion, installation, and performance. The empowering and evocative imagery makes their lived and artistic experiences visible: Athi-Patra Ruga’s tapestry Versatile Queen presents himself as Versatile Queen Ivy, one of his favorite avatars inspired by Rihanna and the legend of Lady Godiva, to confront normative ideas of Blackness and masculinity, while Zanele Muholi’s self-portrait Muholi Muholi, Parktown uses makeup and saturation to highlight the blackness of their skin tone in contrast to prevailing representations of Black women.

The text approaches artworks at an intimate level and places them in larger historical and artistic contexts. Grouping the works in thematic sections draws parallels across art and fosters ongoing conversations:

• Family: explores how birth and chosen families shape awareness of self and the world
• Intimacy: considers self-realization through close connections such as loving interactions, deep companionship, and physical intimacy 

• Joy: focuses on stories of happiness, connection, and pleasure that demonstrate resilience

• Spirit: represents African faith traditions and shows space for queer people
• Fluidity: disrupts expectations and transcends social conventions, including gendered categories

• Belong: asserts how queer people’s experiences are rooted in the larger history and cultures that shaped them
• Action: expresses political activism with artists defending their communities and advancing their rights
• Futures: presents utopian visions of a world to come in which LGBTQ+ individuals are affirmed and thriving

The Here Project is rare in its scope and scale and pays beautiful tribute to contemporary artists making essential work. The featured artists practice across the African continent and its global diaspora, using their work to speak their truths. They are united by a simple, shared declaration: We are here and always have been and will be. All that is left is for us to hear them.