For Kader Attia, art begins with a wound. Then emerge possibilities of ‘repair’.
The Algerian-French artist has spent two decades exploring memory, colonialism, the scars history leaves behind, and healing. Now, as the first international curator of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, he returns to a city shaped by centuries of cultural crossings.
In an engaging conversation with TNIE, Kader talks about making art more accessible, looking beyond the colonial gaze, Kerala’s traditions of healing, and protecting the physical experience of art in the age of AI.
Excerpts:
Could you tell us about your beliefs and outlook on art?
I believe art should be a refuge. We are all different, coming from different perspectives. Art, through artistic experiences and exhibitions, is a place where we can create a new world from scratch.
I say ‘from scratch’ because we need to return to the source of what makes us gregarious — what brings us together to admire, question, watch, meditate, laugh, cry and individuate ourselves collectively.
You visited the previous edition of the Biennale, and must have formed some ideas about it. How do you visualise the Biennale?
Previous editions paved the way for what has become the most important Biennale in the region — one where curation is done by an artist as a statement. I have admired the work of all the previous curators. Their legacy is important to me.
But I am also aware that my proposal received attention because I will be bringing other energies to meet Kochi’s, creating a conversation between West and East.
What are the challenges?
It is an important responsibility. Giving back the honour of having been invited to curate is crucial. It is also a sign of a desire to enlarge the horizon of Kochi — a city, harbour and place that has always been connected to the rest of the world, for better or worse.
The exciting part is creating an environment of artistic experiences while enhancing the power of viewers’ subjectivity in a world where it is hijacked daily by regimes of attention that exploit our cognitive sovereignty.
Your ideas are deeply shaped by the histories of colonialism. While visiting sites in Fort Kochi and Mattancherry, what were your thoughts about their history?
Having visited the sites several times, I have been sensitive to both the aesthetics of the architecture and what those colonial aesthetics mean today.
Coloniality expresses itself through different regimes of daily life, merging many influences. How do we leave room for all these influences as layers of what these places mean?
For me, this requires more research into colonialism in India and Kerala, and into how art can create a safe space to heal such injuries, both visible and invisible.
Can you explain the concept of ‘repair’ that forms the core of your work? How does repair work differently in local and colonial contexts?
Repair works differently when you position your assertion from Kerala’s point of view rather than from another place in the world. Each place has its own history, colonial or not.
But there is a common denominator: repair is always linked to wounds.
I have been working on and thinking about repair for the past 20 years. I started with the physical aspect and moved towards invisible forms of injury and repair, including mental health.
When you think about repair, the wound is never far away. With the colonial legacy, you deal with the wounds and repair of history at the same time.
Your works often begin with statements by traditional healers and shamans. Kerala also has a rich tradition of traditional medicine. Will you be exploring them?
I will definitely explore Kerala’s rich traditions of healing. Art produces realms that can heal people spiritually and mentally — or at least help us live better on those levels. French artist Robert Filliou, of the Fluxus Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, said: “Art is what makes life more interesting than art.”
From this perspective, art is a form of shamanism.
Kochi Biennale has been vocal about promoting local art. However, some believe the canvas provided is not enough. What’s your take?
There will be a particular focus on Indian art. I am about to travel across India, visiting studios in different cities and researching the Indian art scene as much as possible.
Young, old, contemporary and modern, including unexpected practices and different media... everything interests me.
Should events like the Biennale cater to the tastes of art connoisseurs alone? Visitors have often pointed to the complexity and abstract nature of the installations. Even curatorial notes can sometimes fail to explain the artwork. What can be done to make art connect with the masses?
Your question is very important to me. Coming to Kerala, which has a long tradition of socialism, resonates with my conception of how art and exhibitions should engage democratically with the public.
The labels explaining the works will be written to be understandable to the largest audience possible. They should not become a smokescreen or diversion to avoid speaking about sensitive topics or, worse, to speak about nothing.
What interested you in exploring the connections between Western and non-Western ideas? Have you found such connections in Kerala?
A lot! For centuries, Kerala has been part of the silk and spice routes and a crossing point for travellers. Its shores, particularly Kochi, have been constantly connected to the rest of the world through the Indian Ocean.
Today, the Biennale is a moment to reactivate those energies through culture and, in particular, through art.
In an age of constant digital connectivity and image saturation, what can a Biennale offer that cannot be experienced through other platforms?
Constant digital connectivity and image saturation are challenging our most vital and emancipatory instincts. All levels of society, all classes and castes, are looking at their phone screens every day.
What shocks me most is that even people who have no home or means, who are victims of eviction, impoverishment and contempt, are cognitively exploited by the digital automaton of algorithmic governance and other forms of cognitive alienation that we do not yet fully understand.
A biennale, like any exhibition, is a place where individuation can happen.
By individuation, I mean the exchange between individuals through traces, impressions and processes of thought — positive or negative — generated by an artistic experience.
That experience has to be physical, and then psychic, not the other way around, as with devices that connect us virtually. We need to protect artistic and cultural experience, at any price, for the sake of human civilisation.
These are rituals in which the audience participates with their bodies, experiencing the exhibition physically, with their eyes and ears.
AI has become an important topic of conversation across sectors. How do you think it will influence art?
AI can be an extraordinary tool for an artist — for artists who know what they seek and where they want to go.
Artists are the script of art. Over time, consciously or unconsciously, they develop their own script, their own language. At that level, they can use AI as a sculptor uses a hammer.
The notion of truth in the production of an artwork is inevitable. If you do not know what you want or where you want to go, AI will script you. Instead of being your assistant, it will become your master.
AI also has tremendous speed in executing tasks that humans can no longer perform at the same speed. So it is crucial to remain in charge of the notion of truth.
I insist on this because the vital stake in our relationship with AI is the possible loss of our sovereignty to interpret the world amid so many manipulations of ‘reality’.
AI is already showing how much it can play with our certainties through fake news and other forms of visual lies.
When reality is no longer valuable because of so many forms of fraud, what will remain as a space for collective values — ethical values — as aesthetics takes over from ethics?