The primary solo exhibition in France, and outdoors of the UK, by British-Congolese artist Bernice Mulenga. With a follow rooted in care, visibility, and queer kinship, Mulenga’s work explores the notions and nuances of intimacy—inside themselves, inside the Black queer neighborhood, and the shared experiences that form them.
The exhibition title is drawn from the Lingala1 phrase malembe, malembe, which means “slowly, slowly”—evoking the thought of gradual, significant transformation. It resonates with Mulenga’s strategy to image-making: sustained, attentive, and grounded in consent.
For this exhibition, Mulenga attracts on their expansive and ongoing challenge #friendsonfilm—a visible archive documenting LGBTQ+ BIPOC nightlife and their relationships cast inside it—as 2025 marks its tenth anniversary. The works on view right here middle particularly on pictures of {couples} or teams—pals, lovers, and chosen household—captured in moments of affection, deep connection, and mutual belief.
“Malembe, Malembe” options two distinct our bodies of labor: all through the house are cyanotype prints on cotton canvas, and the acetate negatives used to create them, extracted from Mulenga’s #friendsonfilm pictures. These spectral blue our bodies, and their destructive counterparts, evoke presence and reminiscence, hovering between picture and imprint—a gesture towards the traces we depart with and on one another. For Mulenga, the cyanotype hue shouldn’t be related to unhappiness or ‘the blues’, however relatively, fluidity, safety, stability, and connectivity.
“Blue transcends the solemn geography of human limits.”
—Derek Jarman, ‘Blue’ (1993)
Alongside these material and acetate works, we present a collection of analogue pictures from #friendsonfilm: 4 are introduced on aluminium with chrome end frames, with out glass. The aluminium is brushed, hairline or non-directional, to additional alter its reflectivity. The opposite two are framed in cobalt blue and present Mulenga’s sister and her finest pal. These delicately framed items seize the complete, vibrant context of their supply materials—our bodies in relation, in motion, linked. Listed here are {couples}, sustained or transient: some are nonetheless collectively, some are finest pals, others have been solely coupled for the night time; all are ceaselessly linked.
Mulenga understands the dancefloor as each archive and communion—a charged house of expression, vulnerability, and resistance. By their lens, the membership turns into a sanctuary for self and collective reminiscence. As they describe it, these pictures are “from love, for love.”—a doc of consenting marginalised our bodies.
“Malembe, Malembe” gives an area of reflection—a measured, beneficiant unfolding of what it means to be seen, held, and remembered.
Alongside the exhibition, we’re publishing the primary ebook devoted to Mulenga’s work, specifically, their ongoing photograph collection #friendsonfilm—a foundational and evolving physique of labor that has been central to their follow because it started in 2015, now marking its tenth 12 months. It will likely be out there on the house in a primary version of fifty copies, signed, below our new Highway Home moniker.
at Goswell Highway, Paris
till July 19, 2025
