CV | emilymulenga

EDUCATION

MA Fine Art, Chelsea College of Arts, 2019

BA Fine Art, Birmingham School of Art, 2013

STATEMENT

I work across a range of media. Using visuals and sound that draw upon video games, cartoons and the internet I have looked at ideas around feminism, capitalism, speculative digital utopias and the condition of being a millennial.

I was born the same year as the public release of the internet. As a digital native, fantasy was always close and the classic characters of the 90s and 2000s have given way to the avatars and social media personae of today.

My output is the result of a ravenous consumption of media, from the high polish of MTV; the jagged polygons of early PlayStation games; YouTube videos, and the lo-fi social media posts of my online contacts. Gloss and superficiality meet anti-capitalist critique, anxiety and a quest for a pleasurable life. I look into how the internet is used as a tool of expression, including ideas around agency both of the individual and of digital material. I contribute to the circulation of digital matter in all its excess, colour, glamour and repugnance: sometimes rapid-fire, sometimes a shifting, translucent dreamscape. I consider how the blurring between human and machine is changing experiences of womanhood, and how becoming cyborg is both a fantasy and reality, the future and the present.

SHOWS

Solo

Now that we know the world is ending soon...what are you gonna wear?, Cheap Cheap Gallery, Birmingham, UK, 2019
Electric Lady Land, Enclave Lab, London, UK, 2019
Taking Up Space, Firstsite, Colchester, UK, 2017

Group

2020

Fringe of Colour,
R / V, Culturush,
Piper in the Woods, isthisit?
Well Now WTF?,
Afro Futures_UK: Unravelling New Futures, Firstsite, Colchester, UK

2019

The Next Thing Moving Image Award, Bury, UK
NEoN Digital Arts Festival, Dundee, UK
Super Black, Firstsite, Colchester, UK
Collective Intimacy, PRADA mode x The Vinyl Factory, 180 The Strand, London, UK
Manchester Art Fair, Manchester Contemporary, Manchester, UK
New Babylon, Arcade East, London, UK
Encontrar um click num palheiro (Finding a click in a haystack), Centro Comercial de Cedofeita, Porto, Portugal
Vague But Exciting, Vivid Projects, Birmingham, UK
Data_Blood 2.0: A Glitch, Chelsea College of Arts, London, UK
Too Much World, Chelsea College of Arts, London, UK
Guiltee Pleasures, Oh Kay Gall, York, UK
WRO Biennale, Wroclaw, Poland
Afrotech Fest, Rich Mix, London, UK
Situation: Internet, online on IGTV
Data_Blood, Flat 7, 21 Hoxton Square, London, UK
Gentleness, Chelsea College of Arts, London, UK
, Centrifugeuse Concerts-Spectacles, Pau, France
Wicked Game, Chelsea College of Arts, London, UK
WE RUN THIS, BOM, Birmingham, UK

2018

P@55w0rD, Chelsea College of Arts, London, UK
Parallax II: MAFA International Art Festival, ASP Katowice, Katowice, Poland
Obsessions, Chelsea College of Arts, London, UK
Am I giving you body?, Enclave Lab, London, UK
Realtime International Film Festival, Lagos, Nigeria
SHORT To The Point Festival, Romania

2017

Ladies Eat Cake, Video Revival, Brooklyn, NY, USA
Short Circuit Terminal 3, OK Corral, Copenhagen, Denmark
Present Futures library, Open Engagement, Chicago, USA
Spam's- The Internet: The Restaurant, [as part of Cybertwee HQ] Museum of Human Achievement, Austin, Texas, USA
Random Acts Playback Tour, UK-wide
Short Circuit Terminal 2, A plus A Centro Espositivo, Venice, Italy
Abandoned Margins: Policing the Black Female Body, Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
Cybertwee exhibition, Cybertwee Virtual Headquarters app

2016

Deep Trash from Outer Space, Bethnal Green Working Men's Club, London, UK
Futura Free: A Sensing, 198 Contemporary Arts & Learning, London, UK
Short Circuit Terminal 1, Stryx, Birmingham, UK
Random Acts Launch, ICA, London, UK
Ambition pop-up show, HOME, Manchester, UK
Them, Lemonade Gallery, online
Galleri CC at Supermarket Art Fair 2016, Stockholm, Sweden
Abandoned Margins: Policing the Black Female Body, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, USA

2015

LOOP- A video art marathon, CC Gallery, Malmö, Sweden
Fierce Festival 2015, BOM, Birmingham, UK
Live + Loud, Selfridges, Birmingham, UK
Lotusland Video Evening, Changing Spaces Project Space, Cambridge, UK
Disconnect, Home For Waifs and Strays, Birmingham, UK
Give Me Ur Attention Volume II, the Audio Foundation, Auckland, NZ, and online via Fresh and Fruity
This Is What A Feminist Looks Like, Stryx, Birmingham, UK

2014

Fierce Festival 2014, Friction Arts, Birmingham, UK, and online at thisistomorrow.info
Deep Trash Italia: Eurosex Edition, Bethnal Green Working Men's Club, London, UK
ESP Film Open, Eastside Projects, Birmingham, UK
Superstyling! Part of 'Looking Out from the CCCS', Vivid Projects, Birmingham, UK
New Art West Midlands, Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Wolverhampton, UK

2013

I Hate America! (I Love America), The Glass Factory, London, UK
P A N D E M I C, the Photo Parlour, Derby, UK
SPACE, Electric Picture House, Congleton, UK
Degree Show, Birmingham School of Art, Birmingham, UK
[STATE] of Play, The Vaults, Birmingham, UK
The Triumph of Dionysus, part of SHOUT Festival, Birmingham, UK
The Artist’s Playground, Antwerp Mansion, Manchester, UK

RESIDENCIES

2016

MulengaMoji, part of *Dancing Girl Emoji*, online via Delta Sorority

2015

SOUP Part One: Feminism, STRYX arts, Birmingham, UK

PROJECTS

2020

1997 BC, a commission for Big Window accompanied by essay 'Regarding the Nineteen-Nineties' by Ketter Weissman,
Green Screen Dreams workshop, part of Late At Tate Britain: Dystopian Narratives, Tate Britain, London, UK

2019

The Conch, South London Gallery, London, UK
Curators Rianna Jade Parker & Aurella Yussuf of 'Thick/er Black Lines' present a screening of Black British Women/Femme Filmmakers with Writer Derica Shields, 180 The Strand, London, UK
Family Artist in Residence workshops, Camden Arts Centre, London, UK
Living on the Margins conference 2019, University of Westminster, London, UK
Cyber Grrrl workshop, BOM, Birmingham, UK
Guest speaker at 14-18 Now workshop, Lewisham Southwark College, London, UK

2018

Panel conversation "Navigating Spaces Switching Locations", Grand Union, Birmingham, UK
Panel conversation "Democracy and Data" as part of Hello Culture, Birmingham, UK
Fellow at BOM (Birmingham Open Media), UK

2017

Panel conversation "IRL to URL", BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK
Screening/talk at Jenn Nkiru Presents: New Transmissions, New Pathways, ICA, London, UK
Q&As as part of Random Acts Playback, the Phoenix, Leicester and Flatpack Hub, Birmingham, UK
Accelerator Artist Talks, Birmingham School of Art, UK
First Acts Future Ambassador for Random Acts, UK

2016

Panel conversation "Gender Resistance in Utopia", 198 Contemporary Arts & Learning, London, UK
Created a short film as a commission for Channel 4's Random Acts, UK
Video editing/green screen workshops in partnership with MAIA Creatives and Birmingham City Council, UK