New Edition! Subjective Atlas of Lubumbashi

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New Edition! Subjective Atlas of Lubumbashi 〰️

 
Subjective Atlas of Lubumbashi Subjective Atlas of Lubumbashi
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Subjective Atlas of Lubumbashi
€24.50

Picha & Subjective Editions, 2026
French-English, 192 full-colour pages, 16.5 x 22 cm

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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. 

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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

We are extremely proud to present the Subjective Atlas of Lubumbashi. On the initiative of art centre Picha in Lubumbashi, nearly a hundred inhabitants have mapped Congo's second-largest city through their lived experiences, tracing fear and affection, displacement and belonging, neighbourhood economies and night-time rhythms.

 

Job opperunity! SE is looking for editorial and administrative talent

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Job opperunity! SE is looking for editorial and administrative talent 〰️

 

Subjective Editions is looking for an all-round editorial assistant to support the logistical, administrative and editorial work behind our participatory atlas projects. If you are organised, communicative and fluent in English and good in Dutch — with a feel for culture, an eye for detail and experience in editorial work— we would love to hear from you. The role is 14 hours per week, based at our studio in the centre of Brussels, and offers real involvement in a small, inspiring team connected to a wide cultural and social network. Send your motivation letter and CV to before 1 November 2024.

 

 

After years of working, and driven by the initiative of ARTisBOOK, the Subjective Atlas of Groningen has finally been published — a collective exploration of how home is continuously made and remade across this Northern Dutch province. The atlas gathers over 100 perspectives, developed across ten workshops organised by partner organisations throughout the province. Together, participants explored what it means to feel at home in Groningen — in all its personal, particular, and often unspoken dimensions.

 

 

Post Conflict Research Centre (PCRC) & Subjective Editions & Newcastle University proudly announce the release of the Subjective Atlas of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a new publication that reimagines how this charged country can be seen and felt — through the eyes of its people. The Subjective Atlas of Bosnia and Herzegovina was launched on Wednesday, 3 December 2025, with an accompanying exhibition at Vijećnica (Sarajevo City Hall).

 

 

In autumn 2025, we moved into our new studio in the heart of Brussels. To mark this moment, Balázs Kulcsár from the interview platform Paris–Budapest–Metro spoke with Subjective Editions founder Annelys de Vet about the making of the Subjective Atlas of Brussels and the city itself. In this video interview, she reflects on the processes, questions, and collaborations that shaped the atlas.

 

Agenda

 

Subjective atlases

Subjective Mapping

 

Press

“ … they shared personal experiences like growing up as daughters of migrant workers or coming from families of farmers who’ve carried the weight of their land and sugar heritage for generations.” 🔗 The Visayan Daily Star, 4 June ’25

“… to look at our community and environment as we experience it in the present, uncoloured by preconceived notions of geographic borders or cultural divides—to see the world with a fresh set of eyes, instead of simply accepting the dominant narrative.” 🔗 Yuchengco Museum, May 2025

“… the premise of the project is to push back against singular, top-down narratives that claim to present objective truths about a region, and instead document places from the ‘bottom-up.’” 🔗 Balkan Diskurs, 6 July ’23

 
 

Mapping process

 

Are you part of a creative network that is politically engaged, socially sensitive, and in need to map other narratives?

 
 
 

Subjective Editions is the publishing platform that develops participative production processes and distributes these engaged publications. We support communities in mapping their environments from the inside out, starting from a place-based understanding.