Roxane and mel present A warm hug, casual talk and rocking on pillows together: when the familiarity is so strong that it is reassuring and disconcerting at the same time.

Take off your shoes, make yourself at home, we have tea and snacks. This workshop is an invitation for intimacy where we will be reading together, getting to know one another and where we stand.

Artists Roxane Mbanga and melissandre varin will lead this relaxed workshop in and amongst Mbanga’s mult-media  installation NOIRES, currently on show at San Mei Gallery. This event brings into dialogue the two artists’ practices, melissandre varin’s installation linoleum dreams an itinerant art, library, and rest station part of their work with B.O.O.K (Building Our Own Knowledge), and a reading from Roxane Mbanga’s book NOIRE.S, a personal and political diary that tells the story of today’s French Black Womxn through the lens of intersectionality. 

Please note the capacity for this event is 10 people only. Tickets are free but booking is essential. If you are no longer able to attend please contact us at info@sanmeigallery.co.uk so we can offer a place to someone else.

Further information about Roxane Mbanga’s exhibition NOIRES is available on the San Mei Gallery website:

Artist biographies

Roxane Mbanga (b.1996, Paris) is a Guadeloupean-Cameroonian-French multidisciplinary artist, currently based in Amsterdam. Working at the junction of fashion, film, graphic design, photography, writing, and performance, Mbanga considers herself a storyteller. Through her installations, she highlights perceptions of the self and place of black women in public space. Mbanga studied at Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam. Select recent presentations include: Wearing Your Nudity, TEDx Talk, Amsterdam University College, 2022; I am because you are, Vincent op Vrijdag, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, 2022;  Workshop Play it safe (or not), Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, 2022; Installation Histoires de femmes, Amsterdam Fashion Week, Amsterdam, 2022.

Relation, displacement, multiplicity, interdependency, and language emerge from melissandre’s work. Making from an Afro and Caribbean diasporic context, melissandre adds layers of complexity using a situated Black feminism. Through performance arts, moving image assemblages, and site-specific installations - among other things - melissandre investigates love, intimacy, and tenderness.