In Conversation: Kader Attia

Film

Kader Attia is one of the most influential voices in contemporary art working across sculpture, installation, film, and archival research. Since the 1990s, his research-based and interdisciplinary practice has critically engaged with the legacies of colonialism, migration, identity, and Western modernity. Central to his work is the concept of “repair,” through which injury and trauma are acknowledged as visible traces that challenge Western ideals of restoration, proposing instead that breaks and scars are integral to the formation of history and identity.

His work has been presented in numerous international solo exhibitions, including at the Hayward Gallery, London (2019), the Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main (2016), SMAK Gent (2017), and most recently at MAMBO, Bogotá (2024/25) and MUAC, Mexico City (2025). Attia has participated in major international exhibitions such as documenta 13 (2012), the Venice Biennale (2017), and Manifesta 12, Palermo (2018). In 2022, he curated the 12th Berlin Biennale. Since 2023, he has been Professor of Time-Based Media at the HFBK Hamburg.

Moderation: Ulya Soley, SAHA Curator Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart

In the series “In Conversation. A series funded by Deutsche Bank”, an artist talks about their work on the first Saturday of every month at 3 p.m.