b. 1979, Hong Kong, China; lives and works in Hong Kong, China.

Samson Young is known for his multidisciplinary practice that spans across music, sound, performance, and installation. Born in 1979, he studied music composition and philosophy before pursuing an art career. His work often explores the intersection of sound and politics, examining the power dynamics inherent in musical and sonic forms of expression. While Young's background is in music composition, his work as an artist spans a broad range of media, that also includes drawing, wall transfers and radio broadcasting. Young's work is frequently political in nature, addressing military history and the British occupation of Hong Kong as subjects most explicitly. His work across all media, including the sound compositions, touch on topics such as identity, migration, and political frontiers past and present in the context of more explicit geographical and military contexts. Drawing on multiple references, and extensive research, the relationship between violence and sound is a recurrent line of inquiry in Young’s work.

Samson Young represented Hong Kong with a solo project titled Songs for Disaster Relief at the 57th Venice Biennale. He was the recipient of the BMW Art Journey Award, a Prix Ars Electronica Award of Distinction in Sound Art and Digital Music, and in 2020 he was awarded the inaugural Uli Sigg Prize. His recent solo exhibitions include New Work: Samson Young, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2024); Sonata for smoke, Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio (2023); The World Falls Apart Into Facts, Kyoto Experiment, Kyoto (2023); Music for selective hearing, or assisted living, Kiang Malingue, Hong Kong (2022); Artist’s Rooms: Samson Young, Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai, UAE (2021); MAM Collection 012: Samson Young, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan (2020); Instrumentation, Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre, Hong Kong (2019); Songs for Disaster Relief, M+ Pavilion, West Kowloon Cultural District, Hong Kong (2018); Furniture Music, Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne, Germany (2017); Orchestrations, Connecting Space, Hong Kong (2016); and Pastoral Music, Art Basel Hong Kong, Hong Kong (2015). Group exhibitions include Guangzhou Triennial, Guangzhou (2023); Cloud Walkers, Leeum Samsung Museum, Seoul, South Korea (2022); One song is very much like another, and the boat is always from afar, Guangdong Times Museum, Guangzhou (2022); Chrono Contemporary, The Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Taipei, Taiwan (2021); 100 Drawings from Now, The Drawing Center, New York, USA (2020); An Opera for Animals, Para Site, Hong Kong (2019); and One Hand Clapping, Solomom R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2018).

For further information about this artist please click here.

For Samson Young's entry on Asia Art Archive's website please click here.