Vincent Meessen and Samson Kambalu Conversation in Mousse,  on History Without a Past at Muzee, Ostend, Belgium – with Karima Boudou.

“SK: It’s never “only playing.” Playing here is a form of gift-giving—we continue the Situationist obsession with the creative potlatch—art as a form of radical generosity. Play is one way art becomes infrastructure within everyday life rather than remaining in the mimetic superstructure paradigm and subject to capital. Play allows us to exchange ideas on a deeper level. Play cancels out obligations and “pettiness” in mere exchange, and this is most probably the reason Huizinga finds play at the heart of real culture, and why the Situationists employed play as strategy to keep reification at bay. The kind of playing we are doing here is what Nyau culture would describe as gule wamkulu, “the great play.” It’s a form of play on a universal scale.”

History Without a Past: Samson Kambalu and Vincent Meessen, Muzee, Ostend, Belgium