Publication: Fragments of Repair

BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht and Jap Sam Books, Prinsenbeek are proud to announce the release of Fragments of Repair, a reader in BAK’s SUPERBASICS series, that revisits fundamental questions and urgencies of our time and seeks to develop afresh the building blocks of lexicons, tactics, scenarios, and relations that enable action in contemporary conditions.

Today’s entwined crises—from ecological catastrophe to the state of permanent warfare—reveal deep-seated wounds that issue from historical colonialisms and present-day authoritarianisms, economic disparity and growing racial violence, and the abuses inflicted on vulnerable populations and the planet. As a counter to this disquieting chaos, Fragments of Repair offers a collection of textual and visual essays and conversations on decolonial repair as both a tool for and a method of engagement with the current state of the world. A comprehensive examination of the concept of repair, the publication prompts tactical political imaginaries—in and through art, thinking, and concrete action—as the means for prefiguring and enacting pathways toward a socially and ecologically just society.

Edited by Kader Attia, Maria Hlavajova, and Wietske Maas, the publication unfolds from Attia’s aesthetico-epistemic inquiry into the notion of “decolonial repair,” engaging the acute context of brokenness in the present. The book involves major voices by artists, scholars, and other practitioners, including Norman Ajari, Kader Attia, Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Maria Hlavajova, Wietske Maas, Catherine Malabou, Olivier Marboeuf, Achille Mbembe, Wayne Modest, Omedi Ochieng, Matteo Pasquinelli, Rachael Rakes, David Scott, Rolando Vázquez, Françoise Vergès, Elena Vogman, and Eyal Weizman.

Edited by Kader Attia, Maria Hlavajova, and Wietske Maas
Published by BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht and Jap Sam Books, Prinsenbeek, 2025
Design by Sean van den Steenhoven
English language 256 pages, paperback
ISBN: 978-94-93329-31-7

Fragments of Repair can be ordered via Jap Sam Books or purchased at BAK Basecamp for Tactical Imaginaries.