Kader Attia
ReparaRenacer
October 2024 – February 2025
MAMBO – Bogotá Museum of Modern Art, Colombia
ReparaRenacer [RepairReborn] marks the first institutional exhibition in Colombia by Franco-Algerian artist Kader Attia, whose work revolves around the concepts of trauma, repair and resilience. Presenting 16 pieces across sculpture, video, installation, photography and collage, the exhibition explores the wound, physical and symbolic, not as something to be hidden, but as a necessary step in the healing process.
Attia challenges the Western pursuit of perfection, proposing instead that scars hold meaning: they are testimonies of survival, sites of transformation and vehicles for creating new narratives. His diverse practice draws from personal and postcolonial contexts, stressing that repair is not about restoring a lost ideal, but about acknowledging damage and constructing new meaning through it.
At the heart of the exhibition is On Silence (2021), a sculptural installation made of discarded prosthetic limbs. In Colombia, a country deeply scarred by internal conflict and landmine victims, the work resonates with particular urgency. The prosthesis becomes both a mark of violence and a symbol of rebirth.
ReparaRenacer is a manifesto for alternative futures: ones that do not erase suffering, but recognize the power of vulnerability, but also creativity, in rebuilding a broken world.
