Artist Talk

with Anna Nowak, Melanie Roumiguière, Jakob Spengemann, Akinori Tao & Sam Vernon

Image 1: Sam Vernon, Alter-Reservoir (Detail), Kunsthaus Hamburg 2024, Courtesy Sam Vernon
Image 2: Installation view We’ll be right back!, MOM art space 2021, © Jakob Spengemann, Akinori Tao; Picture: Jaewon Kim


Artist Talk

with Anna Nowak, Melanie Roumiguière, Jakob Spengemann, Akinori Tao & Sam Vernon
Saturday, 9 march 2024, 3 PM
Free Participation


The exhibitions While We’re Gone by Jakob Spengemann and Akinori Tao and Sam Vernon’s Alter-Reservoir focus on different aspects of the change of location: insecurities, working practices, the transience of places or the scarcity of space for art and culture in Hamburg and beyond.

In conversation with Anna Nowak (Manager and Artistic Director at Kunsthaus Hamburg) and Melanie Roumiguière (Head of Visual Arts at DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Programme), the three artists provide insights into the process of developing their exhibitions and reflect from different perspectives on the living and working conditions of artists and cultural practitioners in the face of the ongoing loss of usable space.


Jakob Spengemann (*1992, Henstedt-Ulzburg, DE) lives and works in Hamburg. He studied at the University of Fine Arts Hamburg in the classes of Raimund Bauer and Andreas Slominski. His works have been shown at MOM art space, Hamburg, Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof and Galerie Magma Maria, Offenbach am Main, among others. He has received several scholarships, such as the grant from the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes.

Akinori Tao (*1981, Kagawa, JPN) studied at the Tokyo College of Photography, Kanagawa, JP, and at the University of Fine Arts Hamburg in the classes of Thomas Demand and Andreas Slominski. His work has been exhibited at venues such as MOM art space, Hamburg, Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, Galerie Magma Maria, Offenbach am Main, and Galerie Sprüth Magers, Berlin.

Sam Vernon (*1987, Brooklyn, USA) studied painting and printmaking at Yale University and at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. Her work has been exhibited widely, including at the Museum of African Diaspora, San Francisco, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, G44 Centre for Contemporary Photography, Toronto, Seattle Art Museum, Brooklyn Museum, New York City and the Queens Museum, New York City. In 2023 Vernon moved to Berlin for a one-year residency as part of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Programme.