LIBITA SIBUNGU: ZED LOVE
23 May – 31 Oct 2026
10:00 - 16:00, Tuesday - Saturday, The Exchange, Penzance
In this solo exhibition, Libita Sibungu works with early photographic techniques alongside drawing and sound to uncover the hidden layers, energies, and histories that connect people to place. Fragments of real and imagined archives are woven together through voice and movement, forming shifting, living systems that refuse colonial classification.
From this space of thought, the gallery becomes host to a shapeshifting body of work imbued with afro-futurism, rock cycles, Cornish folklore, and West and Southern African mythologies.
Central to the exhibition are a pair of floor to ceiling cyanotype banners, which act like a veil between worlds of strata, exposed with sunlight in Windhoek, Namibia, and Cornwall, UK. The work borrows its title from Octavia E. Butler’s speculative fiction novel, Wild Seed, (1980).
A series of drawings punctuate the gallery walls like portals, intimately sharing experiences of Black and Brown identifying-women in the Cornish West Penwith landscape. Libita has worked with these women, who are also artists, through walking workshops since 2023. Their voices echo throughout the gallery in a multi-channel sound work composed of vocal (dis)harmonies layered with field recordings and low frequencies.
The sound installation culminates in a circular resonating seat, inviting listeners to rest, and feel what they are hearing and seeing. This process of listening is reflected in the large-scale photograms which surround the seat. Made with an experimental analogue technique of exposing light photosensitive paper with sound and light simultaneously. The title of each photogram refers to the process used in this series to sonify matter, such as sand, crystals, hair and thorns, as a way to speak to and with gaps in history.
ZED LOVE is rooted in research to better understand African diasporic, working class, mixed and multi-racial experiences in rural Britain. Libita draws on her own British-Namibian-Cornish heritage to open up complex dialogues of thought about racialised identities.
A public programme of events, both in the gallery and offsite, will accompany the exhibition. This will include performance, an artist talk, and workshops.
See Read More below for artist bio.
ZED LOVE is commissioned by Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange, supported by a Creative Associate Placement at Arts University Plymouth, and funded by Arts Council England
ARTIST’S CHOICE: Neptune Frost
Extending the themes and ideas explored in ZED LOVE, Libita has selected Neptune Frost for CAST’s Artist’s Choice programme. This Afrofuturist sci-fi musical, directed by Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman, explores themes of technology, resistance, identity and liberation. Libita will introduce the film at CAST, Helston, on Thu 24 Sep.
Please note: This is a CAST event and takes place at CAST, not at The Exchange. Please book directly with CAST.
Taken from ZED LOVE, Wild Seed (detail) is a limited-edition digital print featuring an image from the large-scale cyanotype banner presented in the exhibition.
VOICE, RHYTHM & BELONGING: AN EMBODIED AFRO-DIASPORIC JOURNEY
Join performer and facilitator Liz Ikamba on 10 Oct for a vibrant, participatory workshop exploring identity, migration and belonging.
CLOSING PERFORMANCE & IN CONVERSATION
A closing performance on 23 Oct by exhibiting artist Libita Sibungu, followed by an in conversation with sound artist, Neil Rose.
In this special live episode of EMPIRE LINES, Libita explores the layers, energies and geologies that connect people to place, and to African diasporic, mixed and multi-racial, and working-class experiences in Cornwall.
Recorded live at The Exchange in Jul 2026, the episode explores the themes running through ZED LOVE .
AN INTERVIEW WITH LIBITA SIBUNGU
In this short film, Libita reflects on the ideas, materials and processes that have shaped the exhibition.
Read the essay accompanying ZED LOVE, based on a conversation between Libita Sibungu and writer and artist Helen Cammock, exploring the ideas, histories and connections that underpin the exhibition.
AfroSea Collective
Kernow based African diaspora women artists, dreaming deep with the landscape and its layered histories.
Left to right: Catherine Lucktaylor, Angeline Morrison, Libita Sibungu, Maria Christoforidou, Caroline Deeds. Deep Recovery (2023), photograph: Liz Howell.
ARTIST BIO
Libita Sibungu is based in Cornwall. She is a multidisciplinary artist drawing on her British-Namibian-Cornish heritage to make discursive works that explore entangled personal histories, and collective colonial legacies inscribed in the body and land.
Libita is a recipient of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and Arts Future Foundation awards (2022). Her work has been presented internationally, including at; RADIUS CCA (2026); Tate Modern (2025); Kunsthall Trondheim (2023); Sonsbeek and Temple Bar Gallery (2021); Gasworks, and Somerset House (2019).