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Sam Hopkins (artist)

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Sam Hopkins (b. 1979, Rome) is an artist and scholar whose work is rooted in Kenya[1]. He engages with specific constituencies and networks to collectively interrupt authoritative narratives of power[2]. His practice is characterised by an attentiveness to modes of working together, such as collaboration, participation and co-production[3]. Hopkins often develops long-term projects which can have multiple exhibitionary manifestations[4]. In 2014 he was named one of the leading 100 Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy Magazine[5].

Life

Hopkins was raised in Britain and Kenya and holds degrees from the University of Edinburgh (MA), Oxford Brookes University (MA) and the University of the Arts London (PhD)[6]. He currently works as an Artist Researcher as part of the Networks research group at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne[7].

Select Works

  • Slum TV (2007 - ongoing) - In 2007 Hopkins co-initiated Slum TV, together with Julius Mwelu, Fred Otieno, Alex Nikolic and Lukas Pusch[8]. Slum TV is a participatory media organisation that trains young men and women in the poor neighbourhood of Mathare in digital image production. Slum TV members research, shoot and edit stories from the neighbourhood which are then shown in public screenings and distributed through informal pirate cinema networks[9]. Slum TV is one of the few self-run media organisations in Mathare, a slum of 200,000 people[10]. Hopkins has described Slum TV as a grassroots media collective which counters a prevailing ‘NGO aesthetic’[11].
  • Logos of Non Profit Organisations working in Kenya (some of which are imaginary) (2010-14) - is an installation of 24 logos of Non-governmental Organizations NGOs. Some logos are real and some are fictional, yet they are all presented in the same format; individual silk-screen prints on paper in simple wooden frames[12]. By re-contextualising the real logos amongst imaginary ones Hopkins’ aim is that viewers will re-engage with the ‘NGO aesthetic’, the manner in which humanitarian organisations represent themselves and their mission[13]. The work was shown at the Dakar Biennale in 2014[14].
  • Mashup the Archive (2013-15) was a research project based at the Iwalewahaus in Bayreuth dedicated to activating and making visible the extensive archive of African art that has been collected over the last thirty years[15]. Over a period of 2 years Hopkins worked in a curatorial capacity alongside Dr. Nadine Siegert. Ten artists-in residence were invited, both from the African continent and the diaspora, to re-imagine, remix and rework the African art of the collection[16][17]. With Mashup, the final exhibition of the research project, the Iwalewahaus which had recently moved buildings, reopened to the public[18][19].
  • Letter to Lagat (2015) (with Simon Rittmeier) - is an artist book which investigates the power of objects in Postcolonial collections of the Global North[20]. The conceptual starting point of the book is the imaginary, sudden disappearance of a collection of African art and Ethnographica from a European institution[21]. Through a performative forensic process Hopkins and Rittmeier sift through the traces that the museum objects, and museum practices, have left behind[22]. Letter to Lagat is both a parable about possession and loss, and an account of an existing historical and political relationship between Europe and its former colonies[23].
  • The Bike Gang (2015-19) (with John Kamicha) is a project about bicycles and belonging in Nairobi. Hopkins and Kamicha employed strategies of collective and collaborative filmmaking resulting in an intimate portrait of an idiosyncratic bicycle subculture[24]. The many ways in which a biking identity is practiced and performed by multiple Kenyans complicates dominant narratives about fixed Kenyan identities[25].
  • The Qilin (2017-19) (with David Lalé) - is a research and film project that explores the world of African traders living and working in the South China export hub of Guangzhou[26]. The project has several manifestations. GZ Calling (2017) is a 3-channel video installation that explores the labyrinthine spaces and hyperabundance of the wholesale markets of Guangzhou[27]. The Qilin (2019) is an animated documentary about African businessmen working in Guangzhou which premiered at the 63rd International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film[28]. Made in Chinafrica (2020) is a series of short animated tales for social media that illustrate the risks and rewards of the African migrant experience in China[29].
  • Die Dauercamperin (2019) (with Jens Mühlhoff) stages the celebration of Lena Bauer and the offline community DEZENT by The People Company (ppc) a fictional tech company in the future[30]. The installation combines dramatised audio fragments, stage design and exhibitionary conventions to ask how the agency of the individual and the notion of independence can manifest in a networked world[31]. Die Dauercamperin was exhibited within the context of Urbane Kunst Ruhr in 2019[32].

Select Writings

  • 2011. Hopkins, Sam and Johannes Hossfeld. Sam Hopkins: Contact Zones (vol 2). Nairobi: Native Intelligence. ISBN 978-9966-1553-1-3
  • 2012. Hopkins, Sam and Vincenzo Cavallo, “Ghosts that Provoke Violence” in Heidenreich_Seleme, Lien and Sean O'Toole (eds), Ueber(W)unden: Art in Troubled Times. ISBN 978-1431404971
  • 2015. Hopkins, Sam. Maasai Mbili: Contact Zones (vol 13). Nairobi: Native Intelligence. ISBN 978-9966-071-05-7
  • 2015. Hopkins, Sam and Simon Rittmeier. Letter to Lagat, Cologne: Strzelecki Books. ISBN 978-3-942680-72-1
  • 2017. Hopkins, Sam and Nadine Siegert (eds), MASHUP The Archive, Berlin: Revolver Books ISBN 978-3-95763-398-9

Select Exhibitions

  • Nairobi: A State of Mind (2012)[33]
  • Dakar Biennale (2014)[34]
  • Guess who’s coming to dinner (2015)[35]
  • Post African Futures (2015)[36]
  • Lagos Biennale (2017)[37]
  • Precariat’s Meeting (2017)[38]
  • Urbane Kunst Ruhr (2019)[39]

Sam Hopkins - official website [1]

Bibliography

  • Bajorek, Jennifer. 'Beyond the “NGO Aesthetic”' Social Text (2016) 34 (2 (127)): 89–107.
  • Vierke, Ulf. 'Archive, Art and Anarchy: From the Topological Archive to the Anarchic Archive', African Arts. (2016) 48 (2): 12-25
  • Foerster, Larissa, Christian Hanussek and Kerstin Pinter (eds). Afropolis: City/Media/Art, Jacana Media, Johannesburg: 208-210

References

  1. ^ "This Exhibit Will Permanently Redefine Your Idea of Art From Africa". Bedford + Bowery. 2015-07-17. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  2. ^ "Sam Hopkins / David Lalé – Chinafrika". www.chinafrika.org. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  3. ^ "The Latest in Contemporary Art, Culture + Visual Media". Art Base Africa. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  4. ^ "Contact Zones NRB". Contemporary And (in German). 2013-11-20. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  5. ^ "A World Distrupted: The Leading Global Thinkers of 2014". globalthinkers.foreignpolicy.com. Retrieved 2020-04-07.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  6. ^ ""The Bike Gang" - Sam Hopkins (KE)". CATcologne - Community Art Team. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  7. ^ "Sam Hopkins - KHM". www.khm.de (in German). Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  8. ^ "SlumTv - Telling our stories through pictures and videos". slumtv. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  9. ^ "Slum TV presents the other half of the Kenyan story". The Independent. 2008-01-09. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  10. ^ "Kenya's artistic renaissance". openDemocracy. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  11. ^ "Featured Project Slum TV – The local station – Making Africa". Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  12. ^ Bajorek, Jennifer (2016-06-01). "Beyond the "NGO Aesthetic"". Social Text. 34 (2 (127)): 89–107. doi:10.1215/01642472-3467990. ISSN 0164-2472.
  13. ^ "Deconstructing Logos". Contemporary And (in German). 2014-05-21. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  14. ^ Staff, F. P. "The Exchange: Sam Hopkins and Michela Wrong on Africa's New Missionaries". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  15. ^ "IWALEWAHAUS - Mashup the Archive". www.iwalewahaus.uni-bayreuth.de. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  16. ^ "Stedelijk Studies-The Iwalewahaus: displaying works of African Modernism". Stedelijk Studies. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  17. ^ "Sam Hopkins – Fellow Me! Die Mobile Akademie im Programm Fellowship Internationales Museum". www.fellow-me.de. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  18. ^ LifeisaDobbitsch (2015-10-17), It's called MashUp - The Art of Iwalewahaus Bayreuth, retrieved 2020-04-07
  19. ^ Redaktion, Kunstnürnberg (2015-03-18). "Mashup – Neueröffnung des Iwalewahaus Bayreuth". kunstnuernberg.de (in German). Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  20. ^ "Publication: Letter to Lagat". Contemporary And (in German). 2015-06-10. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  21. ^ "Un-doing post-colonial knowledges. Perspectives from academia-arts-activism". H-Soz-Kult. Kommunikation und Fachinformation für die Geschichtswissenschaften (in German). 2020-04-07. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  22. ^ fotota. "Unanchored, Destabilized: About Some Artists' Books Using Photography – Q&A with Katja Gentric, part #2". FOTOTA - Perspectives africaines en photographie (in French). Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  23. ^ "Kunst". StrzeleckiBooks (in German). Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  24. ^ February 1, bicycle | shecyclesnairobi |; Pm, 2017 at 5:32 (2017-01-05). "Exhibition: The Bike Gang by Sam Hopkins & John Kamicha, Jan. 15 – 29 2017 @ Goethe Institut – Auditorium". Nairobi Now :: arts, culture and events. Retrieved 2020-04-07.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  25. ^ "The Bike Gang Sam Hopkins & John Kamicha - Akademie der Künste der Welt". www.adkdw.org. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  26. ^ "British Council Film: The Qilin". film-directory.britishcouncil.org. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  27. ^ Siemons, Mark. "China und Afrika: Der Westen liefert nur noch die Logos". FAZ.NET (in German). ISSN 0174-4909. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  28. ^ "The Qilin · DOK Leipzig". DOK Leipzig. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  29. ^ "Made in Chinafrica (2020) – The Qilin". theqilin.net. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  30. ^ "Sam Hopkins: Die Dauercamperin - VISIT". visit.innogy-stiftung.com. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  31. ^ "Sam Hopkins: "Die Dauercamperin"". www1.wdr.de (in German). 2019-05-13. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  32. ^ "Westzeit - Urbane Künste Ruhr – Ruhr Ding: Territorien". www.westzeit.de (in German). Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  33. ^ "Aktuelles Programm". www.kunsthaus-bregenz.at. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  34. ^ "Sam Hopkins - DAK'ART 2014". biennaledakar.org. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  35. ^ Baumgardner, Julie (2015-07-21). "Understanding Contemporary African Art's Hard-won Rise to the Art World Main Stage". Artsy. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  36. ^ "Goodman Gallery". www.goodman-gallery.com. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  37. ^ "LAGOS BIENNIAL 2017". The Lagos Biennial. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  38. ^ "Precariat's Meeting - Announcements - e-flux". www.e-flux.com. Retrieved 2020-04-07.
  39. ^ "Urbane Künste Ruhr". Urbane Künste Ruhr (in German). Retrieved 2020-04-07.
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