Kader Attia THE REPAIR FROM OCCIDENT TO EXTRA-OCCIDENTAL CULTURES WITH TEXTS BY MIP TEXTEN VON AVEC DES TEXTES DE, MANTHIA DIAWARA JACINTO LAGEIRA KITTY SCOTT, mul Ree go “R90?In Conversation Kitty Scott and Kader Attia discuss the concept of Repair ity Sott The ction of eps centalto your current inking, Can youll me where and how ths originated?” ‘Kader tia have been working ont el vii ony interes, bt he cena oe is inked o he term “eappropnson bots nny ome vlage in Algeria aswel as in oer AStican le ho muh ocoeultaal and socieeconomic contexts Wee ats, of both aerial and imeate- it seeyeling, but twas much more ‘ng period I have ber fies have vein, ike Br founds fo the restation” of things swell as words Eset Sometines the Westen xtra vocabulary cll onl han this Tstarted to become more obvious af pation of three thinkers: PaereJoseph considering the diferent pias of view onre-appro "Boudhon, Orvald de Andrade, and Frantz Fanon, cra iced the term re-aypropraon based onthe einciple that propery is thet nd wits ple eomcaon, This insight came func a whl age of hot shot Rae ton. A few decades lates, in his poemvimarifesto about ext enthropophagy aoa ee earecje moved the concept toward the clr eld. "Tupi or not Tupi: that is the cee eeving tothe ose Tpi peopl of Bras and of coune, o Shak Fen Teall, Fagon sated the word in the colonial contest, asing the sue of e~ se Trt in reliant the oon of ean wha pope bad been posed of Re rp etncn, a conc tat arse win European anarchism during he Industrial Revs rere eloped within different clonal contets, goveras al rations bebwen modern ao aree sheds light onthe parallel relationship between power and modernity and ely colonization and modernity Thhesscarpropintion began take ob alarger meaning, wbich actually that of rept. AS Fee mataton for thee straps, fom the social srugel ofthe Indi Fannin te ral and cultural rages of colonization, came fom an instinctive diy Rear ied for rear From cute etre, reps a a anorp, came more and inn cbervatins. gs? Lam tinkingin 3) and more recently i Kitty Seott: Cea you te this concept in animate an inant nla abou jet and images I have seen in GOCUMENTA sation mainly fused on concrete things 1 the histo the most everyday of Kader Attia: Afr yar of research and obs sachs thoy belonging te the sacred or the profane ‘Bieds slnlydawed on met simian exits atthe coe of realty is coe aon there. indeed, René Descartes snes in bi bok Replae ad aresionan16 1s Coavrtion ‘ng (Rales foe the Direstion ofthe Mind) that the onde of things doesnot only lean on sed on comparisons or simlavies but that, through inferene os been digs as analogies tat ind them together ‘When 1 Congolese fetish is made of er ined a Western term and when a Wester ean of bullet ora bombsbel fiom the Fst Word Waris transformed ito aly Christin artifact or an erry object, thee things create «ne anbivalent realty that emesges fom the one belonging to its eriginal contest and that Finks it to another, the contat of ts new saing, Fah wannfomed object embodies a bridge that cane so as both sures ea isanimate. Objects created by the mind andthe hand within context of por my tions alps embody such aeidge between two spaces, including the ona ber cultuce, which ska well between mall During the First World War soldiers from difeen counties, suckin the middle of hell ft the place whee they meta aly dexth— ade artifacts This each the thing thy made with their hands, ws eonstracted ou of deadly objects such x blty shell and ote, remnants of wa, From the tos of destruction, they produced att and in dang so they hace created another rary. This very recietation sa Modernity has embodied rupture of the bridge tht sed to lak ws wo aatue’s lg. ‘What remains of thts now fo some degre, present within the social cence Bor ae, in Germany the terminology used in ethnological museuars to name their subsets s Nace? salt, which means “people of nature.” The hegemony of culture a a form of Enowedge ‘merged from such disciplines as the unique power to control otherness, as Michel Foust demonstrates in his Archaslagy of Knowle, So what if, parallel to everything vile and vibrating, an inanimate order of things isthe rea canvas or eto whi uma being Tn any minor human fesh injury, any bislgial injary, or mhen any natural element is bro en, the boy instinctively *auto-repais” elf ef the injury ma insignificant, What the hes man mind does when itis repsiing is just allowing nature's loge. I's more obvious wen the ‘pure is realy big, butin the end the only hing te mind does is continue anasel spect, which ian endless repair. So the dificult of epi ists fatal automatism. Actually here me should not say thatthe human mind “does,” because itis aoe just un ac conscouly thought oy the mind. Its a atural process. I al his “he continu of the reps” Conan what chs notion inthe work I made forthe Whitechapel Gallery tiled Cotman f Rep: The Lig of Jacob's Lac, Kitty Scot: A subtheme in your research ithe notion ofreonstucive sugary aad its ‘elation t the notion ofthe epuitA more extreme version ofthis strand of thinking lens to pls or conmese sarge whichis so prevalent ty Is ths aes of reparsotethng you have considered in relation this hey of wor Kader tia: Yes iti, especially through my research on transgeadered bodies, They are slays betwen diferent forms of representation, representation diated bythe socal phere which channels ll relations between people through visi coatct, more han the private one Tie illusion of not being “discovered” asa man fora tansgendeced woman, expel fram te modem Weser word is an imporant stake of ving a tranogender lie Kitty Sott: Where do you ind these repaired objects? Can you describe the search proces?ity Sco nd Kas ie 1s Kader Attia: Ror more than a have observed and researched contemporary ab {st during my frequent tavels to nowtern andl sub-Saharan Aiea. Liieby lite collected fone contemporary repaired objets, This activity led met dig deeper into thei history sad {o questio the origins ofthe epi. Eventually T begun to lok at muscu whee snipes sored, whether in Affica or the West. I wanted to make sure at the surtng point of my interest in the repair within tational cltares—ay an nal, or raft“ ade by the Ku people ofthe Cong that a rend had given ate—maset a ar o scat phenomenon Jeasa fascinating time, Many thing earned were Fondamental to my subsequent research, For sample, its difical to fad repaired objects beease the Wester insite where 1 worked neve ha a category for repaired objets in ther dtshawes. The repair of nig from non-Western, uadiiana culture wed diferent methods an forms. The mas cosumen smatod would be toute a stapler ld something fragile together but there are may other ‘matods, ncuding the most unespected: using a Western material inthe rep, through deli cate and skill plating, lof which gives ene, decraive supplement to the repaired object. ‘Ad last but no leas I ealzed re-appropristion and repair are two concep that exe interdependence Kitty Seott: Your discussion here focuses on objects, Can you tell meow you have worked with images! What ar you lcoking for in imagery? Where do yo find the images that come Int the project nd how do you work with them in the context of exiitons? Kader Attia: Ihave always been fiscinted by images. My frst artworks were photo raph. I even taught photography fort years when I was younger And the fst ine Te Inbied herein Berlin, where no lve, Tshowed avery humanist ide show, enides La ie faerrinage (The Lancing Seip, 2000-2002) a KW laste for Contemporary At the carly 200 in "The State of Things," how organioed by Catherine David. Yenrs have gone bbyand I now sls ind pleasure in space, seulpere, volume, and instalation, However, tines using images is uaveidable and imperative in the fce ofthe real object's presence. The difcalyis the to proiuce an artwork that wot fide in fon ofthe supernty ofthe bjecs presence, because nothing wil ever compete withthe suength ofan chet’ reeace in reat ofthe viewer's eyes. Tiss even truer when the reeeazch theme deals withthe objet a uch Kitty Scott: So wy images? What do they bring tothe corps of knowlege displayed in aninstllaon like Repair! Kader Ait: Images eriulate reality without substituting frit They tk about reality through the pry of ter physial and intelectual characterise Yt inthe frame of repair at !physial element the fundamental reasin for thei interes i ther poll aspect. Indeed, eter in tcitional cultures, where repair is displayed as «new element and, above al the expression of an indivi (he rep fora group (he community, or maybe some other group) that underwtes an undid oi madera Westen cuties whee the stake ofthis act of repair the disappearance of he won a well 8 ofthe epi itself in both cass the ecical result asserts 2 deie fr the supeionityofelure over nature, ome thats, 2 specifiy peculiar toa maura order of things, The wound of «body as well as of an objets the esl of natural weakness, nd thea ef repairing its calturel,heace etal ac poli cal 1 because they ar highly politi hat irnages ae in that ease, of in al, contrary objets from traditional non-Westera cltres, images are a pre technical and ret tome. Fast ofserante product of Western modernity snd 0a unidirectional pote tel fom the West toward itself mages, curl products par aceene, culture over nature pe haps embody a frm of repair af iar tothe West, just a these non-Western repaired ebjeets embody the sgn of e-appropriton anda repair of culture tht of knowledge, averoatre, noe, sensc ofthe natural onder of things, Last but not lest, the side show included in the instal Esira-Oxidnal Calas strats a ertique ofthe aesainiresty and someones rtp —enarned by regerds to de cultures of people who ae stil tur, and partculaly of those whose siuals of intentional val entity of human genealogy to ion The Repair rom Oucdow to y transformations embody the Brom ethnography ethnology and then to anthropology, modern sciences have stays tied to rationalize the evoition of hamaakind rough measurement ad categorization, Yee in my opinion this mathematical, Cartesian logic mises one thing, mag: Imsees rhe works a wel ain rin genera riod th ink tht separates sad ks ust the make thing