ABOUT
Sebastian Acker works across sculpture, video and installation. Drawing on his experience of growing up in the GDR, relocating to London in 2001 and spending more than a decade designing temporary environments for global brands, Acker’s practice is shaped by an interest in the material systems behind the carefully constructed surfaces of consumer culture. In his research-led practice, he follows everyday objects and technologies backwards — from the meanings and desires we attach to them to the materials, infrastructures and landscapes that underpin them. His works create unexpected scenarios in which the familiar begins to reveal its material histories.
Acker studied spatial design at Chelsea College of Arts, London, before completing an MFA in Sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art. His background in spatial design informs his practice, turning an experience of constructing environments into a means of examining the systems behind them. He often combines advanced technologies such as satellite data, thermal imaging and CNC milling with traditional techniques including casting, carving and printmaking. In these shifts between image and matter, distance and touch, familiar things are brought into unfamiliar proximity, disrupting established categories and allowing unexpected relationships to emerge.
His work has been exhibited and screened internationally, including at Manifesta 12, Palermo; the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; Kunstverein Dresden; Galerie Schloss Biesdorf, Berlin; and SAP Space, Berlin. In 2022, his video Can’t See the Wood for the Trees received the 20 Seconds for Art Award from KÖR Kunst im öffentlichen Raum Wien and was presented on more than 3,400 public-transport screens throughout Austria.
In 2026, Acker began work on Out of Thin Air, a permanent public art commission for the State of Berlin at the new Gustave-Eiffel School in Berlin-Pankow. The project incorporates recycled concrete from the former GDR school buildings and objects contributed by the school community, embedding the material history of the site within sculptures and reliefs.
Acker has received support from Arts Council England, Stiftung Kunstfonds, Deutscher Künstlerbund and the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK, among others. His first artist book, Traces of Other Places, was published by Kerber in 2021.
He lives and works in Berlin.
LINKS
Sebastian Acker
Studio Mareschstr. 15
12055 Berlin
Legal Notice & Data Protection