Their practice focuses on how sense and meaning are articulated through these relationships, drawing on histories of consciousness, social formation, psychological inquiry and treatment, material experimentation, and speculative thought. Across mediums, they interpret received ideas of madness, magic, belief, agency, social creativity, and self-organization, often turning to ambivalence as a condition that animates psychic and social life and generates its own aesthetic logic.
Current interests include: Mad studies; sound experimentalism, noise, improvised music; magic (illusion) and deception; contemporary myths, cosmologies, and animisms; logistical nightmares, bureaucratic technologies; critical psychology, depth psychology, theories of distress; philosophies of psychological remediation, cognitive interventions and ableist logics; social contracts, relationships of exchange; uses of poetics.
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, The Studio Museum in Harlem, and e-flux. 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 team at Columbia University. Sami has received generous support from the Foundation for Contemporary Art, Cultural Services of the French Embassy, and the Performing Arts Fund Netherlands.
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, The Studio Museum in Harlem, and e-flux. 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 team at Columbia University. Sami has received generous support from the Foundation for Contemporary Art, Cultural Services of the French Embassy, and the Performing Arts Fund Netherlands.
Selected
2025 — SOMA Summer, MX
2024 — Carolyn Lazard, Fiction Contract & Vital (films), Artistic Director
2024 — Yanira Castro, I came here to weep, ISSUE Project Room
2023 — Christiania Research Residency, Copenhagen, DK
2023 — Triple Canopy Publication Intensive, New York
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
This webpage is under construction.
For any inquiries, contact samihpkns+studio@gmail.com.
Hiii from the other side of the site; thank you for visiting.