The largest organ of the human body is the skin. A biological field of contact—an intersection of concealment and revelation—the skin is where the outer and inner worlds meet and negotiate. The inner workings of the body find their release through it: droplets of saliva, sweat, tears, and other secretions often follow the path of gravity along the curves of our bodies before drying into our clothes, reaching their final destination. Usually, we think nothing of these traces and records of our daily lives, these small remnants of the bodies we once were that tell stories of our health and condition. We are typically more concerned with the different forms and functions of our clothes, wearing them until they smell, are stained, wear out, or until we grow tired of them. This creates an abundance of textile waste, posing environmental challenges while also starkly highlighting historical and contemporary hierarchies.
How do we deal with these loaded, interchangeable second skins?
Sampson Addae is a multidisciplinary artist working at the intersection of sculpture, textile, and installation. His practice stems from an intent to activate the overlooked and the devalued, drawing on materials situated at the periphery of social and economic systems. With a distinct sensitivity to the biography of textiles, Addae employs discarded clothing both as a medium and as a vessel for social, political, and emotional narratives—what he refers to as “anonymous bodies.”
Through processes of collection, reconfiguration, and spatial staging, Addae gives form to narratives of migration, belonging, economic asymmetry, and the residual matter of consumer culture.
His sculptural works, developed through manual processes such as weaving, layered stitching, painting, and turning garments inside out, destabilise the boundaries between body and object, care and detachment.
Sampson Addae(b. 1993, Ghana) is based in Oslo. He holds a BA in Painting and Sculpture from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana, and completed an MFA at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHiO) in 2024.
Solo exhibitions include Relics And Warnings, Kunstnerforbundet, 2025, Burdened Skins, KRAFT, 2025, and he has participated in group exhibitions in both Norway and Ghana – among others at the Museum of Science and Technology in Accra, 2021, Østlandsutstillingen, 2025, and the Autumn Exhibition (Høstutstillingen), Kunstnernes Hus, 2024.