Repair and Born in France to Algerian parents, the artist

discusses time, history and his concept of repair,

Reparation
which does not seek to return to some notion of
an original but instead to incorporate injury and
accident in order to create a bridge between the
past and the present.

Kader Attia interviewed by Maria Walsh

Reason’s Oxymorons, 2015, video installation

Maria Walsh: This is an incredibly busy time for you I understood that the complexity of repair is that it is
as both curator of the 12th Berlin Biennale and with an endless metaphorical process of time. I was fasci-
two solo exhibitions on in Europe, ‘The Museum of nated by the fact that, in pre-modern societies, not only
Repair’ at State of Concept in Athens and ‘Fragments in Africa but also in Asia and in Europe in the Middle
of Repair’ at BAK in Utrecht, a multipart project Ages, you find crafted repairs that keep the object’s
and collaboration that I’ll come back to. But first, injuries visible. Of course, we all know Kintsugi because
I’d like to ask you about the concept of repair that it’s a beautiful repair made of gold. But I very much
you have been working with for about 20 years or so. like the African calabash repairs stitched with strings
Beginning as a tactics of cultural re-appropriation and particularly those that have an exquisite elabora-
and resistance in relation to the histories and legacies tion of knots that can become the ground for another
of colonialism, especially in Africa, its dialectic of artwork. This is extremely valuable to me. There are
injury and healing seems to have expanded into a also many forms of repair that are almost invisible
complex postcolonial, post-traumatic, cross-cultural because they are not necessarily made by artists. For
ethic. How do you see the evolution of this concept me this goes directly to the collective psyche and the
in your thinking? The psyche seems to be more to question of why we repair. What is the agency that
the fore in the BAK project. would move this desire and realisation of repair? It
became clear to me that the pre-modern repair that has
Kader Attia: I think I was very early onto the psycho- kept the injury visible after the accident is the opposite
analytic aspect of the injury in terms of repair but of the conception of modern repair. Modern repair aims
at that time, I’m speaking about 15 years ago, I didn’t at erasing the repair, and the person doing the repair
have the expertise that I have today. I’ve read a lot is responsible for bringing back the object to its origi-
since then on different ways of thinking, on the phe- nal state. Today’s plastic surgery is derived from that.
nomenology of perception, for instance. Initially, what My investigation of the First World War was very
I was both interested in observing, and also producing helpful because the injured faces of soldiers were the
as objects, were forms of re-appropriation, but actually perfect ground for the development of plastic surgery.
they were forms of repair. This became very clear when It’s important here to refer to Suzanne Noël, a doctor

Art Monthly no. 448, July – August 2021 1

in France who worked in the military hospital repair- because it is completely neglected by political power.
ing faces and, after the war, opened the first plastic It’s interesting that in the 21st century we still have
surgery clinic in Paris, so there is a real continuity the idea of mental health as something scary, but,
regarding our obsession to remove the injury and actually, anxiety and burnout, this is mental health
how capitalism is using it in the cosmetic industry. and, for me, it was extremely important not to deny
What is more interesting is that we can polarise the context of the pandemic as many are doing –
two ways of thinking, one that keeps the injury visible I absolutely hate this idea of ‘the show must go on’.
and one that completely removes it. For me, it’s a
question of the way that western modernism has been Yes, ‘business as usual’ they call it here.
colonising the world – I mean, dehumanising the world.
It’s definitely this promise of modernity as a superior And this is why I think the BAK project is so good
technology, so far, to dominate and control the evolu- because I must admit another aspect of my research
tion of the human race. By pretending that we’re able this past year has been on mediology – sciences of the
to go back to the original when we repair things, we media – because I think it is important that we create
are denying the accident, and then we are denying time a new form of mediology between art and society, a new
and history, which is the complete opposite of pre-­ form of correlation between what we are saying and the
modern societies in which the history, or what we call users of these messages. That’s why, for me, creating
history – it was not, of course, thought of like that then – La Colonie Nomade after we lost our original space due
and the incorporation of injury was also the incorpora- to the pandemic was very important. With Françoise
tion of time. In our society we are constantly anxious and all the team, we are enjoying the fact that at least
because we feel that we are losing time and if we look we are trying to do something that helps us be aware of
into psychopathologies from the mildest to the more the situation and to create a much more reflexive space
severe, repair is even more complex because many in the media arena that is otherwise completely occu-
psychological injuries cannot be repaired. This links pied by superficiality and what Bernard Stiegler calls
to history and the traumas that cannot be repaired: ‘functional stupidity’. We decided with Maria Hlavajova
genocides, colonisation, slavery, the Holocaust. and Wietske Maas from BAK to show films about the
I’m finding this polysemy of repair all the time, restitution of artefacts, about psychopathology in the
everywhere. West and Africa, and other works on social housing
project architecture. These artworks will work as
And more and more in a pandemic that is a symptom learning objects – this is the term we use for them – and
of the accelerated damage of global capitalism. In also as supports for conversation with participants and
fact, one of the themes of your current project at students and the academics that we invite. The idea is
BAK is mental healthcare in the post-pandemic era. to create open thought in this very dense landscape of
As well as your large-scale exhibition and new com- the media that does not allow us to think diagonally.
mission, the project involves an online programme
of lectures and screenings, and the decolonial forum When I saw your 2018 film The Body’s Legacies, Pt. 2:
La Colonie Nomade, operating from a temporary The Postcolonial Body at the Hayward Gallery exhibi-
space in Paris, is hosting a study programme con- tion ‘The Museum of Emotion’, I was struck by how
vened by political scientist Françoise Vergès. How what appeared like interview soundbites, akin to
did this all come about? news media, had a flow that was completely unlike
news media and which compelled me to attend to
If you remember when the lockdowns started last the hard-hitting subject matter. The films at BAK
year, in March and April, the question of psychological have a similar style. Many of the videos in Reason’s
health was not much debated. The focus was on the Oxymorons, a 2015 video library of 18 thematic
pangolin and neoliberal extractions from the environ- interviews with philosophers, healers, historians,
ment. I was in dialogue online with an Algerian psycho- psychoanalysts and patients, address conceptions
analyst, Karima Lazali, for a publication. At that time, of psychotherapy that combine traditional methods
she was stuck in Paris and what really struck me was of healing with scientific medicine, which I think is
her saying that the number of her patients was increas- very important work given the problem of healthcare
ing. I was very surprised that she had not stopped in neoliberal capitalism. I’m curious about the format
activity – she is not even online – but she said people of the installation: the modular cubicles that house
preferred to come to therapy with the mask on. It each video make the viewing experience a solitary
quickly became very clear to me that one of the core one, but I have also seen images of the work installed
stakes humanity will have to face after the pandemic differently.
will be the question of mental health because these
conditions of lockdown are anti-human. The human is I showed this work as the installation of cubicles at
a social animal who needs to interact, to individualise the Biennale de Lyon in 2015, but if an organisation
herself or himself. I was very much interested in this cannot afford the space, I adapt the project, although

By pretending that we’re able to go back to the original when

we repair things, we are denying the accident, and then we are denying
time and history, which is the complete opposite of pre-modern societies in
which history, or what we call history – it was not, of course, thought of like
that then – and the incorporation of injury was also the incorporation of time.

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 Reason’s Oxymorons, 2015, installation view, The Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire

for me the cubicle is very important to the concept person who I never could interview, I could never film,
of what you just described because it is not only a because it was someone who asked me the question in
conversation between the viewers and the people who advance. It was a Senegalese psychoanalyst. I sent him
are speaking on genocide or reason and politics etc, but the questions and he replied saying this needs so much
also the correlation between the dynamic of the motion work for me to answer, but because I want something
of the body within the exhibition space is itself an spontaneous I did not follow up. I’m not here to analyse
artwork. That’s why I’m so interested in curating. them. What I am trying to develop is a laboratory
For me, it is not just using a hammer and nails to hang of the mind and of thinking, and that is why I think
things, it is really about exploring the possibilities to it’s a conversation in the sense of Gilbert Simondon’s
affect viewers just by taking care of these distances individuation, because in a conversation both people
that exist between bodies. This cubicle concept was are creating together a collective individual. If someone
produced in 2012 or 2013 but I think there is a premon- has prepared the question, the discussion is not
itory aspect to this work which is interesting for the between you and the person who is talking in the
time we are living in now. BAK is delighted with it filmed moment. If you have someone who has time to
because it helps with social distancing. prepare the question, their voice becomes too authori-
tarian and is then an instrument of control. If, how-
I’m interested to know more about your interview ever, you are in front of someone who has not been able
methods. In one of the videos in Reason’s Oxymorons, to prepare, they are also made fragile by the situation,
‘Reason and Politics’, the psychoanalyst Martine and that is why I think you unconsciously like it
Fourré, New Hampshire reads from some responses because of this equal position of dialogue.
she has drafted to a question you sent her, but most
of the very fluent interviewees give the appearance There are a few places in the 2020 work The Object’s
of spontaneity. Is it spontaneous or is it rehearsed? Interlacing, for instance, in which we hear you speak,
but you mostly edit out your own questions. Is that
I think Martine must have wanted the questions because you want more of a flow between the different
in advance, but most of the time the conversation voices in the video? It’s almost as if they are in
is spontaneous. Some people like to ask the question dialogue with each other.
before you say ‘rolling’ and then they write a draft
of the answer, but what I’m really trying to do with Exactly; this is what I want to create. When I keep my
the interviews with psychoanalysts is to get a sponta- question in, it is because there is no way to understand,
neous answer because here the context of analysis because of the editing, what the person is speaking
forms a mise-en-abyme. Most of the time these people about. It’s rare because most of the time I have them
are listening to people telling them their stories. Of repeat the question when they are answering it, so
course they have their own analysis but it is extremely that the editing makes sense to the viewer. Also, some
rare that they are listened to. There was only one of the questions that I keep in are the ones that come

Art Monthly no. 448, July – August 2021 3

 What I am trying to develop is a laboratory of the mind and
of thinking, and that is why I think it’s a conversation in the sense
of Gilbert Simondon’s individuation, because in a conversation
both people are creating together a collective individual.

up within the flow of the conversation. Do you remem- Of course there is the film, but, in the space, the copies
ber in The Object’s Interlacing there is an interesting are interacting with the image because the beamer
moment in which the psychoanalyst Christine is located behind the objects and the shadow of the
Théodore is speaking about her mother who passed object is constantly imposing itself inside the screen.
away when she was a young girl? From the age of five, The visibility of the shadow on the screen is crucial
she was always introduced to friends and relations as because this film is definitely dealing with the question
‘the one who lost her mother’. She speaks of how for of the ambivalence of what these objects have become.
years she had been losing objects and it became a very As Souleymane Bachir Diagne says in the film, for
significant neurosis for her. She started to get rid of him the objects have become mutants. They are now
it when she didn’t care any more about losing things. the incarnation of different stories and we cannot claim
I was not expecting this. I have known her for years the return of them by denying the hundred years of
and she never told me this story, particularly that she the history of white intellectuals who have been placing
then developed a singing workshop project for the past their own history and their own utopian view on them.
12 years and most of the songs were about mothers. She We are all, of course, for the restitution of objects,
says: ‘I think unconsciously that the lost object I would but, at the same time, I’m working on the question of
suffer forever was the voice of my mother because when whether it’s an honest desire to return, rather than a
she died there were no recordings so I will never hear kind of a fake self-assumption: ‘OK, we gave you back
the voice of my mother.’ I found this super-interesting your objects and now it’s done, we never committed
because it is also the relation that I can develop with those crimes.’ I’m sceptical about the denial of the
some of the speakers that makes the conversation very mutant aspect of these objects. It’s very reductive and
helpful for audiences. Sometimes I receive emails from is also a form of puritanism that works on both sides.
anonymous people who tell me how my films helped We have to remember that there was a debate at the
them. One time, an American Vietnam veteran sent me end of the 19th century in which white French fascists
an email about seeing my 2016 film Reflecting Memory, were saying, ‘Why do you bring that piece of wood
which is about the phantom limb. He had been a soldier here? We don’t need that shit,’ and I think we still have
in the war with his twin brother, who had lost one this sort of western far-right fascist total misunder-
leg and had passed away three years ago from cancer. standing of what the culture of these objects is about
This is very interesting to me, as it’s like an organology and also a significant contempt for this culture. We
of what is a conversation. have to be careful, as Bashir Diagne is underlining, as
there is a risk of playing the perfect mirror to this pure
That’s fascinating, as I have been thinking a lot about authenticity of the origin by claiming back the return
how performative moving-image works can provide of the object to the genuine place of origin. I think the
a vicarious analytic space for the viewer. Returning notion of return is a kind of pharmakon, it’s both the
to the other main installation in the exhibition, The remedy and the poison, and I’m afraid that people see
Object’s Interlacing, another reason why repair is only the remedy. In contemporary art, too, there is this
so prescient right now is because of the new impetus tendency to surf hot topics without understanding the
towards the restitution of stolen artefacts by imperial subtlety of what these objects are or what they incar-
powers. As you have said, in response to President nate. I have been studying objects of ethnography since
Emmanuel Macron’s announcement that all looted 1993 when I discovered them in the Congo and I have
objects must be returned, it’s not as simple as that. never stopped being interested in them. The only artists
Your film raises interesting questions about this. In I saw in my research who were using masks in the
the installation, the film has an audience of masks, 1980s were Fred Wilson and David Hammons. In
which are copies, some made by 3D imaging. They contemporary art, when you used to speak about the
seem to be in a face-off with the film. What is the mask – I did it – you were seen as having a sort of
relation between them? old-fashioned 19th-century dusty mind. I remember

The Object’s Interlacing, 2020, installation view, Kunsthaus Zurich Reason’s Oxymoron, 2015, video installation

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 Reflecting Memory, 2016, video

this very well, but then I did my project in Documenta to find a way to produce together a document that
where I spoke about the repair because I think that would make sense, not only for today, but also for
the 21st century will be the century of reparation. the future. The healthcare facilities proposal was
Many things have changed since then on this question for me a concrete realisation of the – again we return
but unfortunately the topic of restitution that was here to my scepticism of the white cube context. For
raised by the report written by Bénédicte Savoy and me, art is an extraordinary medium through which
Felwine Sarr in 2018 has been used very superficially. to federate, to care about others, about environments:
I see my film as part of the epistemology we need to the natural environment, the psychological environ-
create on this question. It’s a complex but fascinating ment, the technological environment, the digital
topic because it crosses colonialism, capitalism and environment. I think that care of mental health can
patriarchy because these are war trophies. It’s not by be possible by taking care of what defines us as being
doing a little symposium and a sculpture installation human. We can go back to Simondon’s philosophy.
that we will answer the question, but I think we need He said we create ourselves through individuation –
to care about a conversation which will involve, as you stay yourself, I stay myself, but we create this
I have tried to do in my film, different voices. You collective individual. We can see technology, as
also have voices against restitution in my film, if you Bernard Steigler used to say, as a pharmakon. We all
remember, like the grandnephew of General Dodds, know why it is a poison, but, conversely, it brings a
who sacked the palace of King Béhanzin in Benin. form of therapy. It’s about having the correct dosage.
Until now, this guy, a lawyer, has been collecting these That’s why this idea of the podcast makes sense to me.
objects and he says, ‘oh, you know it’s not that easy’. The medium is an interesting transition between an
It’s much more helpful, also for students and histori- artwork and a media. It is something in-between. In
ans, to include all the voices, to understand much my work, I want to create an atmosphere that is not
more what the problem is. intimidating to users, I want it to feel like a conversa-
tion with a friend, because, of course, sometimes the
To conclude, I would like to ask about the new com- discussion is ambitious.
mission ‘Repair and Listen’, which is a podcast and
sound installation at BAK and in healthcare facilities Kader Attia’s ‘The Museum of Repair’ was at
in the Netherlands. The podcasts were not available State of Concept, Athens, from 18 April to 19 June.
at the time of this interview but I believe they feature ‘Fragments of Repair’ at BAK, Utrecht continues
one-to-one interviews between you and a range until 26 September.
of mental-health professionals and students.
Maria Walsh is reader in artists’ moving image
Yes, there will be six conversations in total. When at Chelsea College of Arts and author of Therapeutic
BAK invited me to do a new project, it was very Aesthetics: Performative Encounters in Moving Image
important, also because of the impossibility of travel, Artworks, Bloomsbury, 2020.

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