A person with painted black skin with white highlights on their lips and eyes stares at the viewer while adorned with a crown made of feathers and natural fibers. A blocky ornamental necklace and a horse hair collar grace their neck, with drapes of leather and tassels covering their chest.

Ngwane II, Oslo is one of a group of 365 black and white self-portraits from the ongoing series Somnyama Ngonyama, which translated means Hail, the Lion Darkness in artist Zanele Muholi’s native language of isiZulu. In this series, Muholi portrays themselves in a variety of guises that respond to complicated histories and personal expressions in order to confront the politics of race and representation in South Africa across the different cities in which they have traveled. They transform their appearance with a range of props made from everyday domestic objects such as zip ties, scouring pads, and clothespins that when captured in photographs, feign the appearance of traditional regalia of the Zulu nation.

What household objects do you think the artist may have used in this work?