1 hr 34 min
E5 ACCEPTANCE - Maria Hlavajova & Kader Attia: Fragments of Repair Bratislava BAK Summer School
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- Education
A conversation between Maria Hlavajova and Kader Attia
To engage with the subjects of the 2021 Bratislava BAK Summer School, this conversation takes as a starting point the current project Fragments of Repair (17 April–1 August 2021), convened by BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht with artist Kader Attia and decolonial forum La Colonie, Paris. In Fragments of Repair, Attia proposes decolonial repair as a tactic to engage with the urgencies brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, and in particular the urgencies of collective mental health, chronic uncertainty, social isolation, exhaustion, fear, and loss. The concept of repair has been key across Attia's practice, especially in relation to the material and immaterial injustices of colonial violence that persist into the present. Understanding repair not as a return to past ways, but a forward-looking process shaped by demands for decolonization and the politics of restitution, the conversation asks what pathways can repair offer to life in and out of the viral and psychological pandemonium?
Maria Hlavajova is the founder and artistic director of BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht since 2000, an institution that advocates for the critical role of art in society through various programmes of education, exhibitions, and publishing. Hlavajova is also initiator and artistic director of FORMER WEST, an eight-year long transnational research, education, exhibition, and publication project organised and coordinated by BAK. She regularly contributes to numerous critical readers, catalogues, and magazines internationally. In addition, Hlavajova is co-founder of tranzit, a network established in 2002 that supports contemporary art practices and exchanges in Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania. She serves on the Advisory Board of Bergen Assembly, Norway.
Kader Attia is an artist who explores the wide-ranging effects of western cultural hegemony and colonialism. Central to his inquiry are the concepts of “injury” and “repair,” which he uses to connect diverse bodies of knowledge, including architecture, music, psychoanalysis, medical science, and traditional healing and spiritual beliefs. Throughout his multimedia practice—ranging from sculpture to film installation—“reparation” does not mark a return to an “intact” state, but instead makes visible the immaterial scars of psychic injury. This approach is informed by Attia’s experience of growing up between Algeria and the Paris banlieues.
Attia’s work has been shown in biennials such as the Shanghai Biennial; Gwangju Biennial; Manifesta, Palermo; Venice Biennial, Venice; and Documenta, Kassel. Notable solo exhibitions include The Museum of Emotion, The Hayward Gallery, London, 2019; Scars Remind Us that Our Past is Real, Fundacio Joan Miro, Barcelona, 2018; Roots also grow in concrete, MAC VAL, Vitry-sur-Seine, 2018; Repairing the Invisible, SMAK, Ghent, 2017; The Injuries are Here, Musée Cantonal des Beaux Arts, Lausanne, 2015; contre nature, Beirut Art Center, Beirut, 2014; and Continuum of Repair: The Light of Jacob’s Ladder, Whitechapel Gallery, London, 2013. Attia has shown in group exhibitions at venues such as MoMA, New York; Tate Modern, London; and Centre Pompidou, Paris. Attia has been awarded the Marcel Duchamp Prize (2016), the Joan Miró Prize (2016), and the Yanghyun Art Prize (2017). Attia lives and works in Berlin.
A conversation between Maria Hlavajova and Kader Attia
To engage with the subjects of the 2021 Bratislava BAK Summer School, this conversation takes as a starting point the current project Fragments of Repair (17 April–1 August 2021), convened by BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht with artist Kader Attia and decolonial forum La Colonie, Paris. In Fragments of Repair, Attia proposes decolonial repair as a tactic to engage with the urgencies brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, and in particular the urgencies of collective mental health, chronic uncertainty, social isolation, exhaustion, fear, and loss. The concept of repair has been key across Attia's practice, especially in relation to the material and immaterial injustices of colonial violence that persist into the present. Understanding repair not as a return to past ways, but a forward-looking process shaped by demands for decolonization and the politics of restitution, the conversation asks what pathways can repair offer to life in and out of the viral and psychological pandemonium?
Maria Hlavajova is the founder and artistic director of BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht since 2000, an institution that advocates for the critical role of art in society through various programmes of education, exhibitions, and publishing. Hlavajova is also initiator and artistic director of FORMER WEST, an eight-year long transnational research, education, exhibition, and publication project organised and coordinated by BAK. She regularly contributes to numerous critical readers, catalogues, and magazines internationally. In addition, Hlavajova is co-founder of tranzit, a network established in 2002 that supports contemporary art practices and exchanges in Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania. She serves on the Advisory Board of Bergen Assembly, Norway.
Kader Attia is an artist who explores the wide-ranging effects of western cultural hegemony and colonialism. Central to his inquiry are the concepts of “injury” and “repair,” which he uses to connect diverse bodies of knowledge, including architecture, music, psychoanalysis, medical science, and traditional healing and spiritual beliefs. Throughout his multimedia practice—ranging from sculpture to film installation—“reparation” does not mark a return to an “intact” state, but instead makes visible the immaterial scars of psychic injury. This approach is informed by Attia’s experience of growing up between Algeria and the Paris banlieues.
Attia’s work has been shown in biennials such as the Shanghai Biennial; Gwangju Biennial; Manifesta, Palermo; Venice Biennial, Venice; and Documenta, Kassel. Notable solo exhibitions include The Museum of Emotion, The Hayward Gallery, London, 2019; Scars Remind Us that Our Past is Real, Fundacio Joan Miro, Barcelona, 2018; Roots also grow in concrete, MAC VAL, Vitry-sur-Seine, 2018; Repairing the Invisible, SMAK, Ghent, 2017; The Injuries are Here, Musée Cantonal des Beaux Arts, Lausanne, 2015; contre nature, Beirut Art Center, Beirut, 2014; and Continuum of Repair: The Light of Jacob’s Ladder, Whitechapel Gallery, London, 2013. Attia has shown in group exhibitions at venues such as MoMA, New York; Tate Modern, London; and Centre Pompidou, Paris. Attia has been awarded the Marcel Duchamp Prize (2016), the Joan Miró Prize (2016), and the Yanghyun Art Prize (2017). Attia lives and works in Berlin.
1 hr 34 min