Sam Hopkins | About & Contacts

Contact

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Sam Hopkins is an artist, researcher, and educator whose work navigates the intersections of media, narrative and collaboration, exploring how representations are constructed within different socio-political contexts.

Sam’s projects frequently engage with specific communities to co-produce counter-narratives that resonate both inside and outside institutional spaces. His recent inquires into issues of restitution and artistic research are shaped by questions of positionality. Central to this approach is his idea of a Networked Practice—which emphasises the expertise produced across different geographies, bodies, and minds. Networked Practice explores the potential of collaborative communities, such as Slum TV, and the International Inventories Programme (IIP), to interrogate, reveal and reshape power dynamics and to enable new forms of representation.

Sam has exhibited in international biennales such as Lagos, Dakar, Poznan, and Moscow, at institutions like the Dortmunder U, Kunsthaus Bregenz and galleries like the Goodman Gallery and Richard Taittinger. His work is held in collections including the Smithsonian, Gedenkstätte Buchenwald, and the Abteiberg Museum. In addition to his artistic practice, Sam is invested in education, currently working as Assistant Professor at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. His teaching aspires to foster critical thinking, a collaborative sensibility and interdisciplinary exploration.

CV

Education

2012-18: University of the Arts London (Chelsea): Practice-based PhD Distributed: Co-producing Narratives of Belonging in Nairobi
2005-2006: Bauhaus University: MFA in Public Art New Creative Strategies (Elective)
2004-2005: Oxford Brookes University: MA Social Sculpture (Distinction)
2003-2004: Oxford Brookes University: BTEC in Art and Design (Distinction)
1998-2002: Edinburgh University: MA (Hons) Spanish and History (First Class)
2000-2001: University of Havana: Marxist Philosophy, Cuban History (Elective)
2000-2001: San Alejandro Art School, Cuba,: Sculpture, Portraiture (Elective)
1995-1997: Sevenoaks School: International Baccalaureate (40 points)

Exhibitions and Festivals (selection)

2021: Invisible Inventories, Nairobi National Museum/Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum, Weltkulturen Museum, Nairobi/Cologne/Frankfurt (KEN, GER)
2020: Process as Resistance, Resilience and Regeneration, CAT Cologne, Cologne (GER)
2019: DOK Leipzig, German Competition Short Documentary and Animated Film (GER) Die Dauercamperin, Ruhr Ding, Urbane Künst Ruhr, Dortmund (GER) GZ Calling, Goethe Institut Nairobi (KEN)
2018: Precariat's Meeting, Ming Contemporary Art Museum (MCAM), Shanghai (CHN)
2017: Lagos Biennial, Nigerian Railway Corporation, Lagos (NIG) Chinafrika: Under Construction, GFZK, Leipzig (GER) The Bike Gang (solo), Goethe Institut Nairobi (KEN)
2016: Pluriversale V, Akademie der Kunste der Welt, Cologne (GER) - error: X, Ostrale, Dresden (GER)
2015: Mimicry and Mockery: The Afropean Encounter, Mousonturm, Frankfurt (GER) Future Africa Visions in Time, Iwalewahaus, Bayreuth (GER) Post African Futures, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg (SA) Mashup (curatorial), Iwalewahaus, Bayreuth (GER) Guess who's coming to Dinner?, Richard Taittinger Gallery, New York City (US)
2014: Once Upon A Time, Makarere University, Kampala (UG) Dak'Art, Dakar Biennale, Dakar (SEN) Poznan Mediations Biennale, Poznan (PL)
2013: Africa, Uebersee Museum, Bremen (GER) Once Upon A Time, Goethe Institut Johannesburg (SA)
2012: Nairobi; A State of Mind, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Bregenz (A) Truth is Concrete; Steirischer Herbst, Graz (A) Dead Insects in my Parents Pool (solo), Roots Contemporary, Brussels (BEL)
2011: Conversations in Silence, Goethe Institut Nairobi (KEN) Ueberlebenskunst, HKW, Berlin (GER) 'Not in the Title' (solo), Iwalewa Haus, Bayreuth (GER) The Urban Culture of Global Prayers, NGBK, Berlin (GER)
2010: Afropolis, Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum, Cologne (GER) Mwangalio Tofauti, Nairobi Museum (KEN) Qui Vive II Moscow International Biennale (RUS) Sketches (solo), Goethe Institut Nairobi (KEN)
2009: Transmediale, HKW, Berlin (GER) Sterotypes, Kuona Trust (KEN) It's a Pity we only exist in the Future, Goethe Institut Nairobi (KEN)
2008: A Kind of Ambiguity (solo), Otto Dix Sammlung, Gera, (GER) CPH:DOX, International Film Festival, Copenhagen (DEN)

Residencies, Awards and Scholarships

2018: Research Fellow — Smithsonian Artists Research Fellowship (SARF), Washington DC (US)
2017: Artist in Residence — Visit Scholarship, Innogy Stiftung, Essen (GER)
2016: Research Fellow — Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies (GER) Artist in Residence — CAT Cologne, Cologne (GER)
2015: Scholarship — University of the Arts London Post-Confirmation Studentship (UK) Artist in Residence — Mönchengladbach Studio Scholarship, Mönchengladbach (GER)
2014: Prize — Top 100 'Leading Global Thinkers' Foreign Policy (FP) Magazine, Washington DC (US)
2013: Research Fellow — International Museum Fellowship, Kulturstiftung des Bundes (GER)
2008: Artist in residence — Otto Dix Kunstsammlung / Gera city, Gera (GER)
2004: Scholarship — AHRC Research Preparation Masters Scheme Award, Oxford (UK)

Research Projects

* 2022: Participant — Re-connecting Objects: epistemic plurality and transformative practices in and beyond museums, VW Stiftung Research Project, 2 years (GER, SEN)

2018: Co-initiator — International Inventories Programme: investigating a corpus of Kenyan objects held in cultural institutions across the globe, Goethe Excellenz Initiativ, Kulturstiftung des Bundes Project, 4 years (GER, KEN)
2013: Co-initiator — Mashup the Archive: Artist Residencies and Remixing the African Art Collection of the Iwalewahaus, 2 years (GER)

Teaching

2023: Guest Lecturer, Working Together: Tools, Strategies and Speculations, Methods Lab (Dr. Johanna Steindorf), Köln International School of Design (GER)
2020: Guest Lecturer, Postcolonial memory work; proposals, suggestions, experiments, MA seminar (Prof. Dr. Henrietta Günkel), Rühr-Universität Bochum (GER)
2018: Guest Lecturer, Exhibit! Curating and Exhibitionary Practice Contextualised, MA seminar (Dr. Nadine Siegert) University of Bayreuth GER)
2016: Guest Lecturer, I post there for I am — a practice-based workshop, Intermedia BA (Prof. Dr. Karina Nimmerfall), Faculty of Human Science, University of Cologne (GER)
2014: Guest Lecturer, Documentary in Contemporary Art: A practice-based workshop, Visual Anthropology MA (Dr. Steffen Köhn) Freie Universität, Berlin (GER)
2013: Research Fellow, Mashup the Archive: Remix und Aufruhr im Iwalewahaus, BA seminar (Dr. Nadine Siegert), Iwalewahaus, Universität Bayreuth (GER)
2012: Guest Lecturer, Public Space — Zeitgenössiche Kunstpraxen im Öffentlichen Raum, BA seminar (Dr. Nadine Siegert), Iwalewahaus, Universität Bayreuth (GER)

Conferences and Presentations

2023: Presentation — Temporality, Accessibility and Restitution: Strategies to Reflect on Long-Term Collaborative Film Projects, part of "What is the role of reflection and reflexive methods in Artistic Research?" React and Reflect, Hochschule für Musik und Tanz, Köln (GER)
2022: Presentation — Re-connecting “Objects”, 12th Berlin Biennale, Kunstwerke, Berlin (GER) Presentation — Simba Mbili: Potential Histories of the Man-Eaters of Tsavo, Menagerie virtueller Tiere, Rühr Universität Bochum
2021: Symposium Co-organiser – Gamification vs Play, Times of Hands, The Academy of the Arts of the World, Cologne (GER)
2020: Panel Chair — Object Movement Dialogue #3, International Inventories Programme (IIP), Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum, Cologne (GER)
2018: Presentation — Letter to Lagat, Invisible Inventories, part of "Contemporary African artistic practice: political forms and issues", Musée d’Aquitaine and LAM, Bordeaux (FRA)
2017: Presentation – The Bike Gang — Bikes and Belonging in the Off Road Base, part of "Mediating senses of belonging: Aesthetics, affects, ethnography", Congress for the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Völkerkunde (DGV), Berlin (GER)
2015: Roundtable co-organiser – "Mashup as Defiance: Culture, Appropriation, Post-colonialism" and "Aura: The Object in Postcolonial Art collections", Mashup exhibition, Bayreuth (GER)
2014: Presentation — The Memory of the Crowd: The Potential of New Media Platforms to re- imagine Narratives in Kenya, School of Oriental and African Studies, London (UK) Presentation — Channels through the institution — Undermining the colonial legacy of museums and expositions'', part of "Crawling Doubles. Colonial Collecting and Affect", 8th Berlin Biennale, Berlin (GER) 'Presentation — Mashup the Archive: Remix and Tumult at the Iwalewahaus, part of "Collecting Geographies – Global Programming and Museums of Modern Art", Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (NL)
2013: Presentation – Mashup, Artists With(out) borders, Bern (CH) Presentation — Conceptualising Future, Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies (GER) Presentation — Art as an Argument; with Brian O'Doherty and Eugen Gomringer, Bayreuth Kunsthalle, (GER)
2012: Presentation — The Memory of the Crowd, part of "Ueber(w)unden; Art in troubled times", Goethe Institut Johannesburg (SA)

Publications and Articles (selection)

Citations

2020: Nur Goni, Marian. 'Agents in motion: how objects make people move. An interview with Sam Hopkins and Simon Rittmeier' Third Text Africa, no. 12, August 2020
2016: Bajorek, Jennifer. 'Beyond the “NGO Aesthetic”' Social Text 127, Vol. 34, No. 2, June 2016 Marcel, Olivier. "Ochuo, Du Bidonville Au Cube Blanc: Géographie D'une Rencontre Globale."Cahiers D'Études Africaines 56, no. 223 (2016)
2015: Vierke, Ulf. 'Archive, Art and Anarchy: From the Topological Archive to the Anarchic Archive', African Arts, vol. 48, no. 2 summer 2015
2013: Bounakoff, Pierre Nicholas, Katharina Greven and Nadine Siegert eds, Iwalewa: Four Views into Contemporary Africa, Iwalewahaus: Bayreuth
2012: Hossfeld, Johannes. Mwangalio Tofauti: Nine Kenyan Photographers, Nairobi, Native Intelligence
Förster, Larissa, Christian Hanussek and Kerstin Pinter (eds). Afropolis: City/Media/Art, Johannesburg: Jacana Media

Authored

2023: Hopkins, Sam. Nairobi Distributed, Johannesburg/Bayreuth: Iwalewa Books (upcoming) Hopkins, Sam and Simon Rittmeier. A Topography of Loss in Marian Nur Goni (eds) Trouble Dans Les Collections (#4, March 2023),
2021: Hopkins, Sam and Marian Nur Goni (eds), Invisible Inventories — the zine, Jo'burg/Bayreuth: Iwalewa Books Hopkins, Sam. 'WTF is Gamification? A Brief and Biased Overview' in Madhusree Dutta (ed) CC: (vol 2. 2021), Cologne: Academy of the Arts of the World
2020: Hopkins, Sam. 'Being Contemporary' in Hans Ulrich Reck (ed), Journal der KHM #12, Cologne: Kunsthochschule für Medien
2017: Hopkins, Sam and Nadine Siegert (eds). MASHUP The Archive, Berlin: Revolver Books
2016: Hopkins, Sam. The Rubbish Companion, Cologne: Strezelecki Books
2015: Hopkins, Sam and Simon Rittmeier. Letter to Lagat, Cologne: Strzelecki Books
Hopkins, Sam and Ulf Vierke (eds). Maasai Mbili: Contact Zones (vol 13), Nairobi: Native Intelligence
2012: Slum TV. Grassroots Upgraded: Reflection on Nairobi's Eastlands, Oostkamp: Stichting Kunstboak,
Cavallo, Vincenzo & Sam Hopkins 'Ghosts Provoke Violence' in Heidenreich-Seleme, Lien and S O'Toole (eds), Über(W)unden: Art in Troubled Times, Johannesburg: Jacana Media
2011: Hopkins, Sam and Johannes Hossfeld. Sam Hopkins: Contact Zones (vol 2), Nairobi: Native Intelligence