OUT OF THIN AIR
Public Art (Kunst am Bau) Commission | Gustave-Eiffel School, Berlin | Commissioned by the State of Berlin | November 2025
Sebastian Acker’s proposal Out of Thin Air has been selected for realisation as part of the State of Berlin’s art commission for the new Gustave-Eiffel School in Berlin-Pankow. The invited competition was overseen by Galerie Pankow / Kunst im öffentlichen Raum in collaboration with the District Office of Pankow, and was awarded by an expert jury.
For this public artwork the artist will transform rubble from the former GDR school buildings, together with objects contributed by the community, into sculptural works that respond to the site’s wind-exposed topography and layered history. Developed in partnership with industrial production specialists and local recycling facilities, the two-year process will include concrete processing, CAD sculpting, large-scale casting, CNC milling and more.
A warm thank-you to the jury for recognising and supporting this unconventional approach to Kunst am Bau.
LOOSE GROUND
Group Exhibition | El Hub, Mexico City | October 23-26, 2025
A selection of videos from the series Crude Devices will be on view in Loose Ground, an exhibition by SAP Space as part of B-LA-M — a three-year art exchange connecting Berlin, Los Angeles, and Mexico City. Bringing together four video works, the exhibition explores moments when perception slips and stability falters — when our sense of ground, history, or material certainty begins to loosen.
Featuring works by Sebastian Acker, Patricia Detmering, Nadja Verena Marcin and Ilyn Wong. Image: Nadja Verena Marcin.
TEUFELSEE BIENNALE
Art Festival | Teufelsee Grunewald, Berlin | August 30, 2025, 3-8pm
Dune, a site-specific installation exploring the layers of human and non-human histories embedded in the sand quarry of Berlin’s Grunewald, will be on view during Teufelsee Biennale — a one-day programme of performances, poetry, installations, and interventions around the storied lake.
With works by:
Adrian Piper, Andreas Hill, Any Angel, Bistu Ryx, Joana Stamer, Lara Husemann, Lisa Nossek & Yashar Shirdel, Melo Börner, Mohsen Hazrati, Nancy Görlach, Oliver Schulz, Patricia Detmering, Sebastian Acker, Stephanie Fernandes, Steph Joyoe & Nick Koppenhagen.
IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD (FOR REAL)
Video Art Screening | Kino Moviemento, Berlin | July 2, 2024, 7 pm
Are we creating our own hell on this planet? Have we lost touch with our traditions? Are we creating depressed robots? Are all creatures equally lonely? Are we turning all of nature into products? Should we merge our consciousness with technology? Do we have too many images of the planet to still see it? Should we mine ourselves more effectively for data to succeed?
With works by Neozoon, Alisi Telengut, Elisa Jule Braun, Ilyn Wong, Sebastian Acker, Dagmar Schürrer, Nicolás Rupcich, Ale Bachlechner.
The screening is part of B-LA-M, selected by Clemens Wilhelm.
YARDT SALE VOL. 1
Art Auction | SAP Space, Berlin | April 24, 2024, 6-9pm
Bidding online from April 24, 18:00 CEST to May 5, 23:59 CEST, or via QR codes in the gallery on April 24.
All You Can’t See While Staring at Me #1
(now part of the series Rohling (Crude Devices) )
2024
Copper, 7 x 5 x 15 cm
Up for auction is the first work in an ongoing series of objects crafted from the raw materials used in the batteries, electronics, and screens of our smartphones. Engaging in a chemical reaction with the polished copper surface, the artist’s fingerprints are permanently imprinted, thus turning the work into a unique record of the hand movements which he performed for the video accompanying the object.
RESIDENZPFLICHT - PANEL DISCUSSION
Panel Discussion | Galerie Schloss Biesdorf, Berlin | October 6, 2023, 4pm
To mark the conclusion of Residenzpflicht, an artist residency that took place across ten Berlin refugee shelters between 2019 and 2022, we invite you to a panel discussion with:
Sebastian Acker, artist
Mehran Behrouzfaghani, journalist
Britta Schubert, KIÖR - Büro für Kunst im öffentlichen Raum Berlin
Kati Gausmann and Ricarda Mieth, artists and Residenzpflicht initiators
Benno Hinkes, Berlin Artists Connected
The discussion will be hosted by Stefka Ammon
LANGE NACHT DER MUSEEN
Guided Tour | Galerie Schloss Biesdorf, Berlin | August 26, 2023, 7pm–12am
Galerie Schloss Biesdorf invites you to join a guided tour through Residenzpflicht I-X as part of the Long Night of Museums Berlin.
RESIDENZPFLICHT I-X
Group exhibition | Galerie Schloss Biesdorf, Berlin | June 25 – October 6, 2023
Residenzpflicht I–X brings together works by the artists-in-residence who lived and worked in ten newly built modular refugee accommodations across Berlin between 2019 and 2022.
SELLERIE WEEKEND
Art Event | Berlin | April 28–30, 2023
As part of Berlin’s Program for Project Spaces during Gallery Weekend, the exhibition Before, During, After at SAP Space will be open on Saturday and Sunday, April 29–30, from 2–8 pm.
BEFORE, DURING, AFTER
2-Person Exhibition | SAP Space, Berlin | April 26 – May 14, 2023
Before, During, After is a contemplation on time, nature, and rhythms. The exhibition brings together two Berlin-based artists — Sebastian Acker and Nina Maria Küchler — whose works are, in their own ways, documentations of timekeeping. Revealing moments in which nature oscillates between foreground and background, past and future.
SEBASTIAN ACKER: PLEASE KEEP THE DOOR CLOSED
Solo exhibition | Kunstverein Dresden, Germany | November 9, 2022 – January 31, 2023
For his first solo exhibition in his former hometown, Sebastian Acker transforms Kunstverein Dresden with a site-specific installation featuring Can’t See the Wood for the Trees, a video recorded on the Trans-Siberian Railway in Russia. The invisible goods and raw materials hurtling past in the video meet the materials of the empty exhibition space, which themselves have unknown origins.
20 SECONDS FOR ART AWARD
Award Ceremony | Viennale, Austria | November 3, 2022
Sebastian Acker received the 20 Seconds for Art Award for the short version of his video, originally titled Trans (later expanded as Can’t See the Wood for the Trees). The jury praised the work for “posing numerous questions about consumption, transport logistics, and globalisation through minimalist formal language.” The award is an initiative of KÖR – Kunst im Öffentlichen Raum Wien and Info Screen, and the ceremony took place at the Viennale, Vienna’s international film and art festival.
EDITIONS NO. II
Group Exhibition | Uta Stabler, Dresden | November 15, 2022
Curated by Stefan Krauth, Editions No. II brings together German artists working with editions and series, including Sebastian Acker, Lisa Maria Baier, Elise Beutner, Jan Brokof, Tony Franz, Sara Hoppe, and Johanna Rüggen.
Please join us for the opening on November 15.
SCREENINGS ON PUBLIC TRANSPORT ACROSS AUSTRIA
Public Art Commission | Austria | June – August 2022
Sebastian Acker’s video Trans will be shown on over 3,400 screens across Austrian underground trains, stations, trams, and buses during the summer of 2022. Recorded on the Trans-Siberian Railway in Russia, the video brings the unseen supply chains of raw materials and goods to the screens of public transport. The screenings are part of a public art project by Info Screen and KÖR - Kunst im Öffentlichen Raum Wien
DAHAI.ART: SEBASTIAN ACKER
Artist Interview | Dahai.art | April 20, 2022
» Sebastian Acker's Extraction series takes Satellite imagery—usually used by mining corporations to detect resources—and repurposes it to mimic, lament, and reorder the way we view the natural environment. In this interview, we talk to him about his latest project and the necessity for contemporary artist's to be more aware of materials and where they come from. «
EXTRACTION SERIES
Collectors Launch | Dahai.art | November 30, 2021
Sebastian Acker’s latest series, Extraction (Atacama Desert), in which he converted digital satellite data into physical works by manually applying minerals onto copper plates, is now accessible in the digital space. On Dahai.art, the series can be viewed and collected in digital form.
BOOK SIGNING SESSION
Paris Photo Fair, Grand Palais Ephémère, Paris | November 11, 2021, 2 pm
Sebastian Acker’s first artist’s book, Traces of Other Places, will be presented at Paris Photo this year. A signing session with the artist will take place at Kerber Berlin, Booth SE25.
REVIEW: TRACES OF OTHER PLACES
Book Review | Süddeutsche Zeitung | September 16, 2021
» When the news spread that a copy of the picturesque market town of Hallstatt was to be built in the Chinese province of Guangdong, it triggered two types of reactions in German-speaking countries: offended aggression and disbelieving ridicule. Sebastian Ackers book Traces of Other Places collapses both thought constructs swiftly and decisively. «
Stefan Fischer
Süddeutsche Zeitung
SEBASTIAN ACKER IN CONVERSATION WITH DUNCAN BALLANTYNE-WAY
Book Launch event | Black Flamingo, Berlin | June 26, 2021, 3 pm
Join us for a conversation with Sebastian Acker and art editor Duncan Ballantyne-Way to mark the launch of the artist’s first book, Traces of Other Places.
SEBASTIAN ACKER: TRACES OF OTHER PLACES
Artist’s book | published by Kerber Berlin | 2021
Traces of Other Places unites photos, film stills, and travel notes from an often surreal-looking journey through China’s copy-laden landscape, where not only have they erected sections of European cities, but also built a replica of an entire Austrian village.
The book was supported by Stiftung Kunstfonds and includes texts by art historian Annette Tietenberg and architecture writer Sylvia Chan.
RESIDENZPFLICHT
Group Exhibition | Haus der Statistik, Berlin | September 19, 2020
The artist collective msk7 presents works created during the first edition of Residenzpflicht, a scholarship program in which artists live and work alongside residents of Berlin’s Modular Accommodation for Refugees (MUF).
TRANSPRESENCE
Group Exhibition, Screenings & Talks | Studio 4413, Saint Petersburg, Russia | December 9, 2019, 7:30–11 pm
Transpresence presents artists from the Kontext Residency program, which took place in Siberia earlier in 2019, at Studio 4413 in Saint Petersburg. The event is curated by Mariya Dimitrieva and generously supported by Dekabristen e.V., Berlin, with funding from the German Federal Foreign Office.
ARTIST TALK
Modular Accommodation for Refugees, Berlin | October 11, 2019, 5 pm
Join us for an artist talk with Sebastian Acker, marking the conclusion of his Residenzpflicht residency. The artist explores the refugee shelter as a transitional space, a temporary home. A green screen installed in the courtyard enabled photo and video works in which the background can be digitally removed and replaced by other locations.
RESIDENZPFLICHT SCHOLARHIP
Scholarship | A project by msk7, awarded by the Berlin Senate | 2019
Sebastian Acker is the fifth recipient of the Residenzpflicht Scholarship. Initiated by the artist collective msk7 and supported by the Berlin Senate, the program temporarily opens self-contained refugee shelters to contemporary artistic approaches and developments. Ten Modular Accommodations for Refugees (MUF) in Berlin are extended alternately with an additional mobile module, where ten international grant-holders live and work artistically for one month.
FUNERAL OF PRISTINE WILDERNESS
Participatory Event | Bolshoe Goloustnoe, Siberia, Russia | August 3, 2019
Join us for a two-day festival with the artists of the Kontext Residency program in Siberia’s Pribaikalsky National Park. On August 3, Sebastian Acker invites participants to Funeral of Pristine Wilderness, a ceremonial procession into the forest commemorating the death of nature untouched by humans. Meeting point: 3 pm outside the church.
The Kontext Residency is curated by Mariya Dimitrieva and supported by Dekabristen e.V., Berlin.
MAY THE BRIDGES I BURN LIGHT THE WAY AT MANIFESTA
Exhibition feature | Artviewer.org | November 11, 2018
» May the Bridges I Burn Light the Way evolves through conversations, screenings and performative interventions at Cre.Zi Plus, a daily changing group exhibition at Ballaró Market, and the distribution of the street newspaper Arts of the Working Class, a tool of integration between the citizens of Palermo and art professionals arriving to reflect on arts and society during the opening days of Manifesta 12. «
MANIFESTA 12: MAY THE BRIDGES I BURN LIGHT THE WAY
Group exhibition | Manifesta 12, Palermo, Italy | June 13, 2018
We are pleased to invite you to Exile X Summer Camp: May the Bridges I Burn Light the Way. Curated by María Inés Plaza Lazo in collaboration with Alina Kolar, Dalia Maini, and Exile Gallery, the exhibition is part of the collateral program for Manifesta 12 in Palermo. Sebastian Acker’s installation Remotely Native can be explored throughout the Cantieri Culturali della Zisa quarter.
SEBASTIAN ACKER: ENNIS HOUSE
Solo exhibition opening | Black Flamingo at Fahrbereitschaft, Berlin | April 24, 2018, 7–9 pm
Join us for the opening of Ennis House during Berlin Gallery Weekend on April 24, 7–9 pm. Ennis House is a video by Sebastian Acker exploring digital representations of one of the most extensively used film locations in the world: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis House in Los Angeles. The video weaves a new narrative from found footage of over 20 movies, commercials, games, and 3D renderings that have depicted the building or its interiors since the 1930s..
DIVING INTO A TEACUP
Screening | Institute of Contemporary Arts, London | January 17, 2018, 6:30 pm
Mountain Village by Sebastian Acker & Phil Thompson will be screened at Institute of Contemporary Arts London as part of London Short Film Festival.
» The surreal world of copycat towns in China, the hopes and fears revealed in a garden of memories, the tense last stages of a Balkans refugee route, and how a spatula lost in space could create a cascade of collisions for planet Earth. The microscopic lens reveals much about who we are in this diverse selection of new films. «
MOUNTAIN VILLAGE
Solo exhibition (in collaboration with Phil Thompson) | Neuer Ravensburger Kunstverein, Germany | November 24 – December 10, 2017
We are pleased to invite you to Mountain Village, an exhibition by Sebastian Acker and Phil Thompson. The artists present works from their often surreal journey through China’s copy-laden landscape, where not only have they erected sections of European cities, but also built a replica of an entire Austrian village. By juxtaposing the Chinese copycat towns with their European originals, the artists explore questions around Western notions of originality and authenticity.