Art Basel and BMW are pleased to announce that Samson Young, Hong Kong sound artist and winner of the first BMW Art Journey, will present a new public artwork during Art Basel’s Hong Kong show this year. Titled ‘So You Are Old by the Time You Reach the Island’, the piece will take the form of a multi-media walk that will lead participants on a journey through the streets of the Admiralty and Wan Chai districts in Hong Kong. Offering a time and site-specific experience, the work weaves together institutional histories of place with fictional and personal narratives, all through films, audio tracks, on-site FM radio broadcasts, live actions, and installation elements dispersed along the route.
The multi-media walk adds a new chapter to ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’, an ongoing project the artist developed on his BMW Art Journey in 2015. The artist’s journey centered on bells, both as sonorous objects and as ideological, political, and religious emblems of their respective communities. On a sixty-day trip around the globe, Samson Young researched and recorded numerous bells, compiling an extensive archive of bell recordings and a series of bell sound sketches on paper. The recordings and interviews collected over the journey will be a major aspect of the multi-media walk.
‘During my 2015 BMW Art Journey, I traveled to eleven countries on five continents, frequently alone,’ said the artist. ‘So now it is all the more exciting to add this new dimension to the journey, in the city I call my home, surrounded by friends, artistic collaborators, and visitors. In the past year, I have developed a deeper appreciation for the cultural and psychological meanings of travel, and I hope that though this experience, participants in the sound walk will share this understanding.’
By enabling the winning artist to go on their own journey of creative discovery, the BMW Art Journey functions as a mobile studio that can take artists almost anywhere in the world – to develop new ideas, discover new themes, and envision new creative projects.
Additional information about ‘So You Are Old by the Time You Reach the Island’, Samson Young, and his BMW Art Journey can be found at bmw-art-journey.com.
Private View (by invitation only)
Tuesday, March 22, 2016, 3pm to 8pm
Wednesday, March 23, 2016, 1pm to 5pm
Vernissage (by invitation only)
Wednesday, March 23, 2016, 5pm to 9pm
Public Days
Thursday, March 24, 2016, 1pm to 9pm
Friday, March 25, 2016, 1pm to 8pm
Saturday, March 26, 2016, 11am to 6pm
