User:Musiclar/gap analysis

Gap analysis

 * What is the title of the article in which you identified a gap. If no article exists at all, what should the title be?

Zanele Muholi


 * Document the gap you found, describe how you identified it, and analyze its impact on knowledge.
 * Upon reading Zanele Muholi’s wikipedia article, I came to realize that her representation on wikipedia is akin to a resume, it lists her major achievements and date of birth, however completely disregards her personal involvement in her art. Aside from not once mentioning that Zanele Muholi herself is a black lesbian, the article leaves out the connections she formed with the subjects of her photography, and the personal investment she had toward the black gay community in post apartheid South Africa due to her sexuality. This gap limits knowledge on Zanele Muholi because the intimate nature of her photography simply would not have been possible without the level of trust and understanding that she shared with her subjects through their shared experience of being discriminated against in their own country. By leaving out this information, audiences could easily assume Zanele Muholi to be a passionate ally in the South African fight against homophobia, instead of a target of the discrimination that she’s fighting. Upon further research, when I found Robert Hamblin’s wikipedia page, it depicted the influence that his trans-gender identity had on his art, and his work for transgendered rights prominently in the article. Zanele Muholi and Robert Hamblin were born within five years of each other and are both South African activists, however, Zanele Muholi has won significantly more awards, so it makes little sense that Robert Hamblin (a white man) has more coverage on his personal battles in relation to his art than Zanele Muholi (a black woman). This underlies a systematic patriarchy, in that less successful white male artists can gain more substance in a wikipedia article than an established black female artist, even though both of their art pieces center around fighting the patriarchy. If included in the wikipedia article on Zanele Muholi, I would suggest that my paragraph be inserted as an introduction to the section titled "Career".


 * Propose a paragraph of new or substantially edited content based on reliable sources. (If you are editing existing content, post the current version along with your edited version, and clearly mark which is which.)

Zanele Muholi’s fight against homophobic violence in South Africa stems from her personal experience as a black lesbian, as well as the close connections she has made with other members of the gay community in South Africa. Many of her photographed subjects are personal friends and acquaintances, which allows for the intimate nature of her photography. One of Muholi’s most famous pieces, Aftermath, features a woman a few days after being sexually assaulted, who was close enough with Muholi to confide in her mere hours after being raped. In her self directed documentary, Muholi expressed her feelings of helplessness toward one of the subjects of her photography, a black lesbian woman living without a home because shelters refused to accept her, “I know that there are lesbians who have feelings just like us but they’re stuck [being homeless]… I wish I could help but I don’t have means to help them.”. Muholi sought to give black lesbians visual representation in the world of art, by shedding light on the sexual and physical abuse toward lesbians that was rampant during post-apartheid South Africa,  in a separate interview, she stated “I just realized that as black South Africans, especially lesbians, we don’t have much visual history that speaks to pressing issues”. Additionally, Muholi has been known to use herself as a subject in her own art, often beside her longterm partner in intimate positions, she has also included her own menstrual blood in her work.


 * List the reliable sources that could be used to improve this gap. (You can use the Cite tool from the editing toolbar above to input and format your sources.)