Independence Disillusionment

In works that draw from his interest in a wide range of disciplines such as history, anthropology and philosophy, French-Algerian artist Kader Attia explores hybrid terrains such as those that lie between western and non-western modes and between what we call tradition and aspire to as modernity. In recent years, his research has focused on the idea of repair as a fundamental principle in human development: A concept, he argues, has been conceived differently in western and non-western societies.

Attia’s exhibit at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2014 is Independence Disillusionment (2014), an installation that explores the complex legacy of colonialism in the Middle-East and Africa. It is made up of a series of 26 paintings that depict stamps from different African and Middle-East nations. Released soon after these nations achieved independence, the stamps carry images —of space shuttles, moon landings, heroic scientists— that reflect the utopian dreams of these countries as they lunged towards the promise of modernity. To newly independent countries, man’s explorations of space, a new frontier, represented the ultimate expression of modernity and the possibilities of freedom.

Read alongside the state of conflict and human suffering that we identify with several of these regions in the present, Attia’s paintings become an indictment of the failure of modernity. The utopian visions they carry only serve to mark absences. They capture the disillusionment that followed independence in countries where it brought little respite and newer forms of oppression and hegemony.