Manifesta purposely strives to keep its distance from what are often seen as the dominant centres of artistic production, instead seeking fresh and fertile terrain for the mapping of a new cultural topography.
Kader Attia, DZ
Kader Attia's research investigates the relationship between the individual and the social body, focusing on the contemporary post-colonial body. The artist is especially interested in exploring the transformation of the body of the descendants of slaves and colonized populations, at a time when we are witnessing a new phenomenon of dislocation of bodies, as is occurring with the refugee crisis. In his film The Body's Legacies. The Post-Colonial Body, Kader Attia interviews four people whose ancestors were slaves or members of colonized populations, offering in this way a reflection on the repression of the post-colonial body. The narration alternates between personal experiences and more generalized analysis, focusing, however, on a specific event, namely an attack on a young man, Théo Luhaka, in a Paris suburb in February 2017. Along with the film, Attia is exhibiting Untitled, a sculpture composed of a piece of wood traversed by a fissure held together with clips, in a metaphorical representation of human fragility.