We Are the Traces of the Future: An Interview with Kader Attia
Kader Attia’s oeuvre revolves around the conceptual and material practice of repair, and how the act of mending, always incomplete, reveals as much as it conceals. Repair is a process occurring in nature — wounded bodies can heal — as much as in culture, from history to architecture to everyday life. Attia’s work draws from psychoanalysis, philosophy, anthropology, and art history to propose that every cultural tradition, social institution, and built environment is in an infinite process of rupturing and mending. Working in mediums spanning sculpture, installation, photography, and video as well as research and social practice, Attia examines how societies process trauma, suppression, and loss. Growing up in the suburbs of Paris and Algeria, and having spent several years in Congo and South America, Attia’s practice moves fluidly between cultural systems and historical registers, tracing the ongoing psychic and physical consequences of colonialism on the social and the natural world.
Kader Attia
MS – Looking across your recent projects – from “Whispers of Traces” at the Venice Biennale to your new work for the Louvre – it feels as though your practice is increasingly concerned not only with the histories we inherit, but with the very conditions through which knowledge is produced, circulated and legitimised. Is this a direction you consciously recognise in your work? How do you feel your practice is evolving today?
KA – Indeed, for several years now, I have been developing, through my work, critical perspectives on modern history, particularly as it relates to colonialism and the various forms it can adopt. But over time, I have come to consider – and this is what seems most important to me today to share with the public – our emotions and our ideas, whatever they may be. Above all, we, artists, must develop a language, because in the vast ocean of ideas that exists today, viewers’ attention is completely overwhelmed. One could speak of an “attention vault” under which we are forced to live. It therefore seems to me that it is language – the singularity of an artist’s language – that sets itself and us apart from this dense “attention vault” and allows the message to speak directly to the viewer’s psyche. And to achieve this, I believe it is important that this language not be afraid to lose itself in the limbo of abstraction, until it reaches what I call the poetic dimension of art, one that leaves a deeper and more lasting impression on the viewer’s mind.
MS – In “Whispers of Traces”, artificial intelligence is approached not through algorithms or machines, but through ritual objects, spiritual beliefs and ancestral forms of knowledge. Rather than opposing technology and spirituality, the work seems to dissolve the boundary between them. What drew you to this unexpected encounter, and what does it reveal about the way we understand knowledge today?
KA – In this work, “Whispers of Traces”, I draw the viewer into a conversation that is dear to me: one that brings to light the dialogue between premodern beliefs and the certainties 34 Interview Interview 35 extolled by scientific modernity. I am particularly interested in how these beliefs – and the practitioners of those beliefs, such as traditional healers, shamans, mediums, and so on – view the functioning of digital technology in relation to their conception of existence. It so happened that a few years ago in Vietnam, I met a shaman who, when asked: “What do you think is the relationship between the world of the invisible and the Internet?”, gave me an answer that continues to haunt my thoughts… According to him, while computer viruses were originally created by hackers, today they are generated by the protocol that governs virtual, digital technology. He considers these viruses to be spirits rather than digital products. He also believes that an immeasurable war is brewing between the spirit world and the human world, via the Internet. From an artistic and philosophical standpoint, this aspect strikes me as interesting in many ways. Indeed, the abstract dimensions of the questions he raises call for a form of poetry that intrigues and draws viewers into these existential reflections on themselves, and in fact on their own finitude and the future toward which we are heading. It therefore seems to me that this reflection is all the more important because it encourages the viewer not to adopt a knee-jerk criticism of digital technology – a sort of technophobia – but rather to embrace a less passive way of life, allowing them to use it wisely, in a perfect balance between beliefs, certainties, and expectations; if indeed there are any certainties at all, for I believe that the world of digital technology is one of the unexpected, like life in general, but that modernity sells us certainty.
MS – The Guests of the Louvre programme brings your work into dialogue not only with the museum’s collections, but also with Elizabeth Peyton’s. Having once been studio neighbours, you now find yourselves sharing the Salle de la Chapelle after two years of independent research within the Louvre. Rather than presenting two parallel exhibitions, the programme invites a conversation between two distinct artistic practices. How did you approach this dialogue? Did Peyton’s perspective influence the way you thought about your own project?
KA – The relationship we’ve developed with Elizabeth Peyton is wonderful and truly complementary. We have different practices, but Elizabeth’s energy is very soothing, and, in the case of this residency, it helped me appreciate the silence of the studio and process the enormous cognitive and visual overload that the Louvre Museum represents.
MS – You were recently appointed Artistic Director of the next Kochi-Muziris Biennale. Your exhibitions and artworks have always started from questions rather than answers. As you begin working on such an important project, is there a question that has already become central to the way you’re imagining the Biennale?
KA – Your question really resonates with my way of thinking. In fact, before responding to the call for applications, I first asked myself: “Why a new biennial?”. It is the same question that comes to mind when I create a new work. Every artist should ask themselves: “Why a new work?”. Every curator should ask themselves: “Why a new exhibition?”. We live in a society where art occupies a paradoxical position. It is both vital and, at the same time, almost looked down upon by public authorities, which allocate very little funding to culture, regardless of which government is in power. Paradoxically, it is often the private sector, which isn’t necessarily interested in thought and philosophical ideas, that serves as the main sponsor of art, for various reasons I won’t go into here. So, why another biennial? Because every exhibition, every work of art, leaves new traces; these memory traces, these mnesic traces allow human civilisation to grow by strengthening its shared understanding of the world, its common ground. This is why the traces of the past inspire us: they form the fabric of our present, but we ourselves, in this present, are also the traces of the future. This is why serving as the curator of a biennial like the Kochi Biennial is a fundamental responsibility, both in terms of the invitation to work in a city, region, and culture where I do not live (for the time being) and which has done me the honour of inviting me, and in terms of the human dimension of what a biennial truly is.
MS – Your work has consistently resisted simplification, even when engaging with some of the most urgent political and historical questions of our time. Yet artists today are increasingly expected to take clear public positions, while public debate often leaves little room for ambiguity or complexity. How do you navigate this tension? Do you think the contemporary art world is still capable of making room for genuine dissent, or has criticism itself become another form of cultural capital?
KA – Your question is very interesting, because I have indeed always believed that complexity, or at least subtlety, is necessary for sharing emotions and ideas with the audience across space and time. Something that is too simple is quickly forgotten, especially today in our “scrolling culture”, where images are consumed at the very speed at which they are replaced by others – seen very quickly, forgotten just as quickly. It seems to me that contemporary art is in danger in this relationship with images, which is extremely influenced by social media and, above all, by the need for profitability in all our relationships and interactions with the outside world. Through the collection of our online data, capitalism has become behavioural from the viewer’s perspective. The more passive the consumer is, the more vulnerable they become… For them to be active, they must make the effort to understand what they are about to share, just as the artist must make the effort to develop a language that does not immediately cause attention fatigue. My artworks play on both a great complexity of meaning and emotion, as well as a visual and poetic ergonomics. Nor should they be inaccessible or even too abstruse; on the contrary, they should be generous in their desire to share and care for the collective.
MS – You have lived and worked in Paris for many years while maintaining a critical perspective on many of the cultural and political narratives that shape contemporary Europe. Beyond being one of the world’s cultural capitals, what does Paris still offer you as an artist? And what does it continue to challenge you to question?
KA – Paris is a city I’ve come to love while travelling elsewhere. When you live here, it’s a city you hate (too expensive, too violent, too crowded), but when you travel, you still realise how lucky you are to be in a city with such a rich cultural life, a history stretching back a thousand years, and where you can actually get out to the suburbs to breathe some fresh air and go biking by a lake. Furthermore, Paris boasts great cultural diversity. I’ve never seen a city as cosmopolitan as Paris – maybe London, but London lacks certain communities, and certainly not Berlin, which is becoming increasingly monolithic.
Credits:
1. Whisper of Traces 2026, installation view at 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Photo: Andrea Rossetti. Courtesy of Galleria Continua.
2. Whisper of Traces 2026, installation view at 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Photo: Andrea Rossetti. Courtesy of Galleria Continua.
3. Whisper of Traces 2026, installation view at 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Photo: Andrea Rossetti. Courtesy of Galleria Continua.
4. Whisper of Traces 2026, installation view at 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Photo: Andrea Rossetti. Courtesy of Galleria Continua.
5. La Vénus Dogon, 2024, wood and marble, 225 x 77 x 60 cm. Photo: Adelanto Pablo Ballesteros. Courtesy of Galleria Continua.
6. Sculpture and video by Kader Attia in the exhibition “Louvre Guests: Kader Attia and Elizabeth Peyton,” in the Salle de la Chapelle, at the Louvre Museum in Paris, September 2026. Photo: Audrey Viger. Courtesy of Louvre Museum.
7. Noise, silence, 2017, metal, fabric, foam, wood, site specific installation. Photo: Ela Bialkowska. Courtesy of Galleria Continua.
8. Ring Theory, 2015, mirrors, iron, metal wires, 100 x 500 x 500 cm. Photo: Oak Taylor-Smith. Courtesy of Galleria Continua.
9. Work on memory #2, 2017, collage, 82 x 102 x 3 cm. Photo: Ela Bialkowska. Courtesy of Galleria Continua.
10. Descente au Paradis, exhibition view MO.CO, Montpellier, France, 2024. Photo: Laurent Lecat. Courtesy of Galleria Continua.
11. Le grand miroir du monde, 2017, mirrors, site specific dimension. Photo: Ela Bialkowska. Courtesy of Galleria Continua.
12. The Repair, 2012, diptych of 80 slides, 15′, loop. Photo: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano. Courtesy of Galleria Continua.
