16.10-15.11 ’26
Exhibition Atlas Subjectif de Lubumbashi
🕐 16 October – 15 November 2026
📍Atelier Picha, Lubumbashi (DRC)
🔗 instagram.com/picha_art_center/
🙏🏻 Atelier Picha (Gaelle Van Lede, Grady Bizaki, Semi Kansense, George Senga)
The Subjective Atlas of Lubumbashi will be presented at Atelier Picha during the 9th Lubumbashi Biennale, marking the launch of a publication initiated during the previous edition of the Biennale. Developed by Picha and Subjective Editions, the atlas brings together the perspectives of nearly a hundred inhabitants who have mapped the city through their lived experiences. Their drawings, photographic series and alternative cartographies move beyond the familiar lines of colonial planning, railway infrastructure and mining, tracing instead the intimate geographies of fear and affection, displacement and belonging, neighbourhood economies, night-time rhythms and personal landmarks.
The exhibition presents a selection of works from the publication, alongside a video work in which participants share the stories behind their contributions and reflect on their experiences of the city. Together, these works reveal Lubumbashi as a place of contradictions and connections, shaped by memory, labour, creativity, hardship and resilience. As part of a Biennale that brings the city into focus as a space for artistic research, encounter and dialogue, the exhibition invites visitors to discover Lubumbashi through the eyes of those who live it, and to explore the many worlds that make up the city.
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Picha & Subjective Editions, 2026
French-English, 192 full-colour pages, 16.5 x 22 cm
—
Lubumbashi is not a city to be easily navigated; it is a city to be lived, loved, hated, remembered and constantly transformed. This Subjective Atlas of Lubumbashi looks beyond the colonial grid, railway lines and mining infrastructure of Congo’s second-largest city. On the initiative of independent art and research centre Picha, nearly a hundred inhabitants have mapped their lived experiences. Their drawings, photo series and alternative cartographies acknowledge both the city’s wounds and its cultural vitality, tracing fear and affection, displacement and belonging, neighbourhood economies, night-time rhythms, rituals, and personal landmarks. We see flowers bloom despite hardship, braids become living archives, and clothing shape urban aesthetics. These poetic gestures resist being pinned down to coordinates, but unveil a constellation of interconnected worlds where memory, labour, creativity, pain and resilience meet, allowing us to imagine potential futures from this point forward.
—
ISBN 978-9-46-444804-7
This publication is a result of collaboration between Subjective Editions and Atelier Picha
Editor-in-chief: Annelys de Vet
Editorial team: Grady Bizaki Fungafunga, Filip De Boeck, Semi Kansense, Jean-Sylvain Tshilumba Mukendi, Gaëlle Van Lede
Picha & Subjective Editions, 2026
French-English, 192 full-colour pages, 16.5 x 22 cm
—
Lubumbashi is not a city to be easily navigated; it is a city to be lived, loved, hated, remembered and constantly transformed. This Subjective Atlas of Lubumbashi looks beyond the colonial grid, railway lines and mining infrastructure of Congo’s second-largest city. On the initiative of independent art and research centre Picha, nearly a hundred inhabitants have mapped their lived experiences. Their drawings, photo series and alternative cartographies acknowledge both the city’s wounds and its cultural vitality, tracing fear and affection, displacement and belonging, neighbourhood economies, night-time rhythms, rituals, and personal landmarks. We see flowers bloom despite hardship, braids become living archives, and clothing shape urban aesthetics. These poetic gestures resist being pinned down to coordinates, but unveil a constellation of interconnected worlds where memory, labour, creativity, pain and resilience meet, allowing us to imagine potential futures from this point forward.
—
ISBN 978-9-46-444804-7
This publication is a result of collaboration between Subjective Editions and Atelier Picha
Editor-in-chief: Annelys de Vet
Editorial team: Grady Bizaki Fungafunga, Filip De Boeck, Semi Kansense, Jean-Sylvain Tshilumba Mukendi, Gaëlle Van Lede
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