Samson Young is presenting his first solo exhibition in India at Experimenter Gallery, Kolkata. In ‘Mastery of Language’ Young exhibits works on paper, videos and a performance which span the course of the exhibition to unveil a connection between language and power. Young takes inspiration from Franz Fanon, the Martinique Afro-Caribbean philosopher, whose work emphasises the pivotal role of language in cultural, racial and political domination. By re-cycling and ‘vandalising’ hand-written manuscripts of his original musical composition, rendering them unintelligible, Young explores the appropriation of visual and aural language. The idea of ‘performative’ power underscorest these works; power comes with the awareness of the ‘performative’ nature of musical signs and therefore the possibility to manipulate them and summon something (an act, a sound, a gesture) into being.