Join us as we host Sunil Gupta and Bernice Mulenga in conversation, exploring their photographic practices and the vital role of community and self-organisation in their work. This conversation offers a rare opportunity to encounter each artist’s practice more intimately while tracing the common threads that connect different generations of LGBTQIA+ artists, their work and their communities.

Gupta and Mulenga will reflect on photography as a form of shared authorship—an act of mutual affirmation rather than possession—and on how their practices resist the violences historically embedded in photographic traditions. They will explore how, through their work, they cultivate approaches grounded in trust, lived experience and collective engagement.

This event takes place as part of Frieze East End and in conjunction with Mulenga’s solo exhibition at Auto Italia, LMK WHEN U REACH.

Sunil Gupta (b. New Delhi, 1953) is a British/Canadian citizen, MA (RCA), PhD (Westminster), who lives in London. He has been engaged with independent photography as a critical practice for many years, focusing on race, migration and queer issues. A retrospective will be presented at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, in 2026. He is a Professorial Fellow at UCA, Farnham. His latest books are ‘I Call You My Love’ (Baron Books, London, 2025) and ‘Tessa Boffin Photographs’ (Stanley Barker, London, 2025). His work is held in numerous private and public collections, including the Tokyo Museum of Photography, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Royal Ontario Museum, Tate, Victoria and Albert Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. His work is represented by Hales Gallery (New York, London), Materià Gallery (Rome), Stephen Bulger Gallery (Toronto) and Vadehra Art Gallery (New Delhi).

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.