is an artist interested in classificatory and epistemic systems, such as methods in information architecture, computation, scientific models of cognition, and psychiatric diagnosis and pathology. Their work examines how these systems establish categories of coherence, how people put those categories to use, and how those uses naturalize particular social arrangements and ideas of nature, mind and personhood. 

Across video, digital rendering, installation, sculpture, and text, they question the authority of these schemes, responding to their internal limits and contradictions to clarify what partial images of the world they produce and on what terms they might be reorganized.

Current interests include: Mad studies; philosophies of psychological remediation, cognitive interventions and ableist logics; noise, improvised music; magic (illusion) and deception; contemporary myths, cosmologies, and animisms; logistical nightmares, bureaucratic technologies; critical psychology, depth psychology, theories of distress; 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 previously studied at Berklee College of Music and 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. They have received generous support from the Foundation for Contemporary Art, Cultural Services of the French Embassy, and the Performing Arts Fund Netherlands.

CV available on request.
For inquires, samihpkns+studio@gmail.com