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Sami Hopkins works as an artist, writer-researcher, and musician between Philadelphia and New York.
Across projects, their practice observes the relationship between subjective experience, social (political, symbolic) context, and the materials these encounters produce. Often applying participatory and arts-based research methods, recent projects prioritize text, moving image, sound- and noise-driven inquiry to parse received ideas of madness, agency, work, family systems, healing, self-organization, sense- and meaning-making.
Current interests include: uses of language and poetics in “applied aesthetics”; Mad studies; sound experimentalism, improvised music; magic (illusion) and deception; logistical nightmares, bureaucratic technologies; alternative methods of inquiry and knowledge production; critical psychology, depth psychology, theories of distress; cognitive interventions and ableist logics; social contracts, relationships of exchange.
Sami recently completed a certificate in Labor Studies at CUNY School for Labor and Urban Studies. They have held positions at the Cooper Gallery at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African & African American Research; the Institute for Contemporary Art Boston; and The Studio Museum in Harlem. Recent work, projects, and presentations include: Christiania Research Residency (2023); ISSUE Project Room Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellowship (2021); Recess Critical Writing Fellowship (2020); The Studio Institute’s Museum Education Practicum (2019); and openwork Journal’s editorial collective at Columbia University. Sami has received generous support from the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and the Performing Arts Fund Netherlands.
2023 — Christiania Research Residency, Copenhagen, DK 2023 — Triple Canopy Publication Intensive, New York, NY 2023 — openwork vol. I no. I, Columbia University Libraries 2022 — S. Warren & Sami Hopkins: Place of Toil, ISSUE Project Room 2022 — Aden: Tizita, From the Feet Up, ISSUE Project Room 2022 — Institute for Critical Animal Studies performance lecture 2021 — Leo Genovese: The Art of Not Playing, ISSUE Project Room 2021 — Society for Disability Studies performance lecture 2021 — Jessie Cox: The Sound of Listening, ISSUE Project Room 2021 — ISSUE Project Room Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellowship 2020 — Recess Critical Writing Fellowship 2020 — “Elliot Reed: On Body & Performance”, Studio Magazine
Full CV available upon request. For any inquiries, contact [email protected].