Samson Kambalu

A Life Shaped by Two Worlds

Samson Kambalu was born in 1975 in Lilongwe, Malawi. His early years were spent within the halls of Kamuzu Academy, a school often compared to the English Eton, where he first encountered Western educational structures. This period of his life created a lasting tension between different ways of seeing. While his formal schooling provided a window into a specific type of academic rigor, his time in local villages offered a different perspective on art as something integrated into the very fabric of daily existence.

He pursued his studies at the University of Malawi’s Chancellor College, training as both a fine artist and an ethnomusicologist. This dual focus allowed him to study the sounds and rituals of his home with a scholar's eye. Later, his path led him to England, where he earned an MA in Fine Art from Nottingham Trent University and eventually a PhD from Chelsea College of Art and Design. Today, he resides in Oxford, serving as an Associate Professor at the Ruskin School of Art and holding a fellowship at Magdalen College.

The Language of Play and Ritual

The work of Samson Kambalu is deeply rooted in the Nyau culture of the Chewa people from Malawi. This tradition involves masked performances and secret societies, elements that he translates into contemporary media. He often uses the concept of play to challenge social structures. One of his early, well-known pieces, Holy Ball, involved a football wrapped in pages of the Bible, an object that invited people to participate in a physical act of both exercise and spiritual release.

His practice is notably multidisciplinary, moving between several different forms:

• Site-specific installations
• Digital video and monochrome clips
• Performance art
• Literature and autobiographical novels
• Sculpture and drawing

He developed a specific cinematic style known as Nyau Cinema. These are short, often silent film clips that use sped-up motion and a grainy, sepia aesthetic reminiscent of early cinema. These films are not meant to be viewed in isolation but function as interventions on social media or within gallery spaces, bringing the spirit of traditional masquerade into the digital age.

Memory and Resistance

Much of his art deals with the weight of history and the act of reclaiming it. His sculpture Antelope, which was displayed on London’s Fourth Plinth from 2022 to 2024, reinterprets a 1914 photograph. The work features John Chilembwe, a Malawian Pan-Africanist, and the missionary John Chorley. By scaling Chilembwe to be larger than life, Kambalu highlights a moment of colonial resistance, specifically referencing how wearing a hat was once an act of defiance for Africans under British rule.

His writing also provides a window into his personal history. In his memoir, The Jive Talker or, How to Get a British Passport, he recounts his experiences of moving between Africa and Europe. His work continues to draw from various intellectual currents, including the Situationist movement's ideas on the rejection of established structures and the Protestant tradition of critical inquiry. Through these varied lenses, he explores themes of identity, memory, and the relationship between the past and the present.