Bernice Mulenga, Crew love ll, 2024. Courtesy the artist.
To love is to heal, to heal is to love
– Dr Melz Owusu
Auto Italia is pleased to present LMK WHEN U REACH, the first major institutional solo exhibition by British-Congolese artist Bernice Mulenga, marking the ten-year anniversary of their ongoing photo series, #friendsonfilm. This ever-growing archive honours the people who shape contemporary LGBTQ+ BIPOC spaces of celebration, where dancefloors become sites of intimacy, community, solidarity and resistance. Mulenga’s work documents and pays tribute to Black queer life in the UK and beyond, offering a conduit for visibility, collective memory and meaningful connection.
Mulenga’s practice emerged in response to the enduring lack of representation and critical engagement for Black, Asian and other minoritised and racialised communities within the UK’s visual art landscape, and more specifically, to the marginalisation of Black voices, even within broader discourses led by other global majority groups. Their work also challenges the absence of support for these communities in traditional settings of education, knowledge production and dissemination. Drawing on frameworks of queer, postcolonial and critical race theory—which highlight how public and cultural spaces are shaped by racialised and gendered systemic oppression—Mulenga’s work makes a case for the importance of being present and occupying space with intention, both individually and collectively.
Nightlife—and the rich aesthetics and performative traditions of fashion, music and dance therein—has long served as a vital cultural and political arena where Black and queer communities have fostered solidarity, self-determination and sanctuary. The act of creating and claiming these spaces constitutes a powerful form of embodied resistance, making an important political claim and offering a means to imagine and enact alternative realities. Through Mulenga’s lens, and against the rise of far-right rhetoric, club cultures are framed as critical contemporary sites where marginalised bodies can express themselves freely and where the people who hold, animate and shape them are foregrounded. In this way, Mulenga’s work shines much-needed light on the overlooked and unseen stories of these individuals and their communities.
Since 2015, through their ongoing series #friendsonfilm, Mulenga has documented a number of parties and club nights—initially those organised by their peers and, more recently, events curated by the artist themself. Central to Mulenga’s practice is the care for and thoughtful representation of the people they photograph. Especially evident within ethnographic and anthropological contexts, the tradition of photography has historically been steeped in racialised and gendered systems of looking that objectify, exoticise and exert power over their subjects. This is reflected in photographic parlance; for example, in references to ‘capturing’ or ‘shooting’ one’s subject. Providing a necessary antidote to these violent photographic practices, Mulenga consciously uses photography as a means of deep connection, grounded in mutual engagement, shared lived experience and trust. In many cases, what may begin as a fleeting moment of documentation naturally unfolds into a lasting exchange: most of the people in their photographs are individuals they know or have formed bonds within the spaces that they share.
Documenting everyday rituals, queer club nights, domestic settings and intimate relationships, Mulenga has developed a distinct visual language—textured, dynamic and organic—that speaks to the lived realities of their community. Depicting both moments of energetic vibrancy and gestures of quiet introspection, the work reflects the spirited outer lives and the intimate inner worlds of its subjects. Merging documentary sensibilities with artistic expression, their images demonstrate that such depth is neither simple nor easily attained—it is a practice of dedication and devotion.
LMK WHEN U REACH is commissioned and produced by Auto Italia, with support from Arts Council England, National Lottery Project Grants and Cockayne Grants for the Arts.
Auto Italia’s commissions are made possible by our Exhibition Circle and Member supporters.
Bernice Mulenga (b. 1996) is a British-Congolese artist and photographer based in London. Mulenga’s practice seeks to archive, document and interrogate the world around them, primarily focusing on themselves, Black queer global and local communities, and the experiences found within them. Their work centres on bonds, kinship and the search for intimacy. This is exemplified in their ongoing photo series #friendsonfilm, a living archive that has been growing since 2015 and continues to evolve with time.
Mulenga’s recent exhibitions include Malembe, Malembe, Goswell Road, Paris (2025); Sending My Love To You, Baby, Haricot Gallery, London (2024); Conversations, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (2024); Pictures of Us, Gathering, London; The Makings of You, Modern Art Oxford (Photo Oxford); and Beautiful Experiments at Photo50 London Art Fair (all 2023), among many others. Most recently, Mulenga was awarded the Circa Prize 2024 and their film Let’s Move On was featured on Piccadilly Lights in London and other international screens throughout September 2024.
