Tom Sachs’ Space Program: Retail Lab Lands at SSENSE

The artist's Space Program: Rare Earths exhibition is made possible in part by SSENSE and is on view at Deichtorhallen Hamburg through April.

October 6, 2021

Serving as a first-of-its-kind digital companion to artist Tom Sachs’ years-long Space Program project, SSENSE has unveiled the full Space Program: Retail Lab (S.P.R.L.) experience.

The S.P.R.L. experience sees the shared values of Sachs and the SSENSE team being united in the spirit of challenging the traditional ideas of what a retail space can be, ultimately empowering users to access everything from apparel to art to furniture.

Unique features of S.P.R.L. include online access to Sachs apparel, furniture, design pieces, art, and limited-edition t-shirts commemorating the artist’s Space Program: Rare Earths exhibition. Also being made available are the Fanny Pack Pro bag and Nikecraft archival products, which will drop throughout the course of the exhibition. Users are invited to undergo a “series of exercises” in order to “digitally indoctrinate themselves into the Studio code,” per a press release.

Further marking the moment is an S.P.R.L.-commemorating zine, which is distributed at Deichtorhallen Hamburg—the site of Sachs’ Space Program: Rare Earths exhibition—and SSENSE Montréal.

Originally, the S.P.R.L. experience was set to launch in September. SSENSE, however, said in a theme-acknowledging statement that month that it was “better to delay a mission than to have it fail.”

Below, see a selection of S.P.R.L.-focused shots. Tom Sachs’ Space Program: Rare Earths exhibition is made possible in part by SSENSE and is now on view at Deichtorhallen Hamburg through April 10, 2022. Learn more at deichtorhallen.de.