Know Your Hong Kong Artists: Samson Young
A teacher at City U’s School of Creative Media, Samson Young won the Bloomberg Emerging Artist Award in 2007 and the Arts Development Council’s Artist of the Year award in 2013. Blending music and visual art, he’s known for creative projects, such as orchestras made from Game Boys and iPhones.
I’ve been playing instruments and doodling since I was very little, but I only studied it formally during my undergrad.
Visual art and music can’t really be separated. For instance, if I go to a symphony orchestra concert, what I enjoy the most is the theater of orchestral music: how the whole orchestra can respond to the conductor’s single gesture.
The whole atmosphere of the art scene has improved recently. There are a lot more activities, opportunities for artists, and greater attention paid to art by society in general.
Then again, this is not just in our art circles. It’s happening in other industries and fields too, because Hong Kong’s culture is rising.
Recently I’ve been researching Hong Kong’s involvement in the Second World War, and the role of artists during a war. In the US, there was a squad in WWII made up of artists—nicknamed the Ghost Army. They were recruited to stage deceptions on the battlefield, like beaming recorded marching sounds onto the field to make the enemy second guess their actual location.
“M18 Claymore Antipersonnel Mine,” 2015