Kader Attia was born in 1970 and grew up between Sarcelles and Bab-el-Oued in Algeria. He spent several years in Congo as part of his military service. During this time, a friend gave him the wrapper of an ancient Kuba princess, patched using scraps of French fabrics. This was the start of a long project on the concept of repair, something central to Attia’s work, which for him is closely linked with an exploration of colonialism and the regimes of visibility. Back in France, he enrolled in courses at the École Supérieure des Arts Appliqués Duperré, the Arts Décoratifs in Paris, and the Escola Massana, Centre d'Art i Disseny in Barcelona. This was the start of an extensive career dedicated to investigating the complex relationships between France and its immigrant population, culminating in the controversial exhibition Hallal, at Galerie Kamel Mennour, in 2004. Now exhibited and recognised internationally, he was awarded the Marcel Duchamp prize in 2016. 

Attia has been conducting intercultural and interdisciplinary research for over twenty years. Working in several different media, the artist began his career with photography, before shifting his focus to installations. These sometimes monumental works often attest to a political activism that has never wavered. The concept of repair, be it material, psychic or symbolic, has served as the common thread for his work for more than two decades. He believes that social, state or cultural institutions can all be considered stakeholders in a cycle of destruction and repair, which also involves gathering and reappropriating. This dimension was tangible in his recent piece Les Entrelacs de l’Objet (The Object’s Interlacing, 2020), which superimposes African cultural artefacts with a video of the Senegalese philosopher Souleymane Bachir Diagne. 

In 2016, Attia founded La Colonie in Paris, near the Gare du Nord, a self-managed bar and events space that aimed to facilitate debate and discussion. Focusing mainly on notions of decolonialisation, it hosted many key figures of postcolonial thought and sought to decompartmentalise knowledge through a transcultural approach. Rocked by the Covid-19 crisis, La Colonie closed in 2020. Recently, the French-Algerian artist, who has lived in Berlin for nearly twenty years where he also has a studio, was appointed curator of the Berlin Biennale, a role traditionally reserved for practitioners.