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.