The Artists Roundtable, an international forum for leading practitioners, is hosted by Tamsin Dillon, faculty member of the MA Curatorial program.
Samson Young is a Hong Kong-born artist and composer whose practice uses sound, performance, video, and installation to examine the cultural, political, and historical dimensions of sound. Trained formally in music composition, he employs a multidisciplinary approach, often incorporating rigorous research and fieldwork into his projects. Young's work frequently addresses themes of military conflict, migration, and identity, challenging audiences to reconsider their auditory experiences and the power dynamics embedded within them. His multimedia approach includes performance, site-specific sound installations such as Liquid Borders, animated music videos, and drawings that translate musical concepts visually. Central to Young's practice is his innovative approach to sound, often through a process he describes as "muting". By consciously suppressing dominant sounds, he creates space to reveal unheard or marginalized sonic elements. His projects often involve collecting "sound sketches" and recordings from historically significant conflict sites, which are then reinterpreted through his work. In one notable project, Nocturne (2015), Young recreated the sounds of nighttime bombings from muted video footage using Foley techniques, which he then broadcast via a pirate radio station. A key aspect of Young’s work is its interdisciplinary nature, combining his musical background with other technologies and mediums. For example he incorporates 3D-printed objects connected to sensor-based programs to create new musical composition systems. His project Intentness and songs (2024) combined 3D-printed sculptures, video, and a soundscape to explore the idiosyncratic rhythms of love, memory, and time, drawing on human and AI memory recall processes.
Selected major exhibitions include: New Work: Samson Young featuring the immersive multimedia installation Intentness and songs. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2024), Silver Moon or Golden Star, Which Will You Buy of Me? Smart Museum of Art, Chicago (2019), Songs for Disaster Relief World Tour M+ Pavilion, Hong Kong (2018), group exhibition One Hand Clapping Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2018), Songs for Disaster Relief, representing Hong Kong, Venice Biennale (2017), "documenta radio" project, Documenta 14 (2017). Young's work is held in the following public collections: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA, Tate, UK, M+ Museum, Hong Kong, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan, Kadist Foundation, Paris, France, Jameel Art Centre, Dubai, UAE, Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, USA.
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