Introduction to Nyau Cinema
- Submitting institution
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University of Oxford
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 1822
- Type
- M - Exhibition
- Venue(s)
- Whitechapel Gallery, London
- Open access status
- -
- Month of first exhibition
- August
- Year of first exhibition
- 2016
- URL
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-
- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- How might Southern African Chewa philosophies of excess, play, and gift-economy be applied to the medium of video and installation in order to subvert capitalist models of filmmaking?
A solo project commissioned by the Whitechapel Gallery, Introduction to Nyau Cinema comprised an installation including ten silent videos, projected alongside Kambalu’s recent writings, through which Kambalu explored the emancipatory potential of Nyau – the Chewa word for excess. Building on research into early cinema and the gift-giving culture of the Chewa, the ethnic group to which he belongs, Kambalu developed ‘Nyau Cinema Rules’, an artistic manifesto and research methodology that established a different temporal logic to the predominant narrative drive of Western cinema.
Inspired by archival research into the Situationist International, Kambalu, on his travels, asked strangers to film him performing simple, short actions. He developed a multi-screen installation, evoking magazine layouts, that awaited fulfilment through the rituals of viewing, and made his videos freely available on YouTube.
Further disseminated through a performance lecture, consultation on a Netflix film, inclusion in a Thames and Hudson book, and further iterations exhibited in solo and group shows around the world – including a solo exhibition at Zietz MOCCA, Cape Town – that were widely reviewed, Kambalu opens a previously unexplored dialogue between the influential Situationist détournement (hijacking) of the capitalist city and Chewa conceptions of the city as a site containing arenas of play that foster gift-giving – an excess beyond the logic of capitalist exchange.
Nyau Cinema’s exploration of the continuing relevance of established scholarship on gift-economies develops a complex reflection on the global dominance of Western models, casting new light on, for instance, whether the vitality of the culturally specific improvisation that defined Kambalu’s childhood experiences still obtains in the internet age.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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