Sean Burns How do you envision M+ shaping the worldwide notion of Hong Kong’s cultural identification over the subsequent decade?
Doryun Chong From the very starting, the imaginative and prescient of M+ was clear – it’s a international museum of up to date visible tradition rooted in and originating from Hong Kong, impressed by town’s historic cosmopolitan identification. Because it opened in 2021, the museum has delivered on that imaginative and prescient to precise and enrich town’s cultural DNA. Because the world continues to alter within the coming years, we’ll proceed to uphold our founding imaginative and prescient.
SB How is M+ balancing its worldwide ambitions with the necessity to assist and nurture native Hong Kong artists and communities?
DC Town’s locality, arts and tradition have at all times been on the core of the museum’s assortment. Round 20 p.c of artists and makers in M+’s assortment are from Hong Kong, together with artists equivalent to Movana Chan and Trevor Yeung. Our programmes recurrently characteristic native expertise. For instance, between 2013 and 2025, we organized and curated six editions of the Venice Biennale Hong Kong Collateral Occasion that includes native artists. Hong Kong artists have additionally been included as candidates within the Sigg Prize exhibitions since 2019. There are various methods by which we assist and nurture Hong Kong artists.
SB Given the shifting political and social panorama in Hong Kong, how does M+ navigate curatorial freedom and institutional accountability?
DC Like several main establishment all over the world, curatorial autonomy and independence are paramount. It’s our institutional accountability to ship and preserve the imaginative and prescient I discussed above, which I can confidently say we’re fulfilling. I imagine that political and social landscapes have been shifting globally over the previous few years and can proceed to take action within the coming years, making our work as museums more and more difficult. At M+, we’ve grown extra educated and delicate to native specificities, whereas staying in shut dialogue with our colleagues all over the world to check notes and be taught from each other.
Hong Kong will proceed to function a gateway between Mainland China and the remainder of the world – a connector and a translator, because it has at all times been
SB What position do you see M+ enjoying in fostering dialogue between conventional artwork types and digital or immersive media, particularly with the rise of AI and digital actuality?
DC A very good instance is ink artwork, a vital conventional artwork type in our a part of the world, with Hong Kong enjoying a very necessary position within the modernization of that medium and style. Reasonably than remaining confined to conventional types, ink artwork has continued to evolve. We’ve got a youthful era of artists – equivalent to Hung Fai and Yau Wing Fung – participating with the sphere in very dedicated methods. A few of them at the moment are combining ink artwork with AI algorithms and different cutting-edge technological developments, pushing the sphere even additional forward. M+ appears on the newest developments in modern artwork and design, intently observing and finding out new tendencies and concepts whereas sustaining a sure distance from historical past to type extra goal views. We at all times remind our viewers that there’s a genealogical trajectory that has introduced us to those latest tendencies, tendencies, and practices.
SB How does M+ plan to remain related to youthful generations, each when it comes to programming and engagement methods?
DC M+ has a really younger viewers. Roughly 85 p.c of our guests are between the ages of 18 and 45, with round 45 p.c falling throughout the 25–34 age vary. Our worldwide crew can be a really younger workforce. About 80 p.c of our workers members are from Hong Kong, and for a lot of, M+ is the primary and solely museum they’ve ever labored for. They don’t seem to be solely being skilled as museum professionals in numerous areas but in addition deliver their concepts and reflections of what the youthful era is curious about and obsessed with.
SB With international museums more and more specializing in sustainability, how is M+ integrating environmental consciousness into its exhibitions, collections and operations?
DC We’re a really energetic member of the worldwide museum neighborhood collaborating in discussions on sustainability in areas equivalent to facility administration, assortment care, exhibition design and manufacturing, programming and operation. As a comparatively new establishment housed in a constructing with sturdy vitality effectivity options – such because the District Cooling System situated beneath our constructing that pulls vitality from the water in Victoria Harbour to generate electrical energy – we try to combine sustainability all through our practices. We additionally work intently with worldwide alliances of museums and advocacy teams to reexamine and advocate on a broad vary of museum requirements. By way of assortment care, we attempt to reduce our carbon footprint after we ship our assortment works out and in, keep away from constructing extreme new partitions in our exhibition designs and implement materials recycling in exhibition manufacturing. We additionally take into account sustainability when choosing exhibition topics and growing curatorial ideas.
SB Are you able to talk about any upcoming initiatives or acquisitions that you simply imagine will redefine how audiences interact with M+ sooner or later?
DC The museum’s major remit is to deal with developments in modern visible tradition; nevertheless, we generally stage exhibitions that hint an extended historical past. For instance, in ‘The Hong Kong Jockey Membership Sequence: Picasso for Asia – A Dialog’, at the moment on view, we take a look at European modernism from the sooner a part of the twentieth century by means of the work of Pablo Picasso, in relation to our largely modern assortment. Within the newly opened ‘Canton Trendy: Artwork and Visible Tradition, 1900s–Seventies’, we once more discover the primary half of the twentieth century and the emergence of recent artwork and visible tradition in Guangdong, southern China.
Our upcoming exhibition ‘Zao Wou-Ki: Grasp Printmaker’, which opens in December, options the Chinese language-born artist who later turned a naturalized French citizen. The exhibition embodies the spirit of internationalism that defines M+. M+ holds the biggest assortment of Zao’s graphic works outdoors France, and this exhibition goals to spotlight his printmaking observe, which stays largely underexplored. I feel these three exhibitions actually broaden our horizon past modern visible tradition and our quick geographies.
SB Trying forward, what’s your biggest hope – and your biggest concern – for the way forward for modern artwork in Hong Kong?
DC Our contribution to the current and future of up to date artwork in Hong Kong has been most seen by means of our work on the Venice Biennale, the place we helped elevate six Hong Kong artists onto the worldwide stage. This exemplifies what we, as a worldwide establishment, can do to assist form the identification of our metropolis’s artwork. Though we aren’t persevering with to arrange the Hong Kong Collateral Occasion on the Biennale in the interim, I imagine M+ has set a mannequin and established a excessive customary for a hopeful future of up to date artwork within the metropolis and additional afield. I’ve at all times given credit score to the business sector for its position in fostering modern artwork right here. I firmly imagine that Hong Kong will proceed to function a gateway between Mainland China and the remainder of the world – a connector and a translator, because it has at all times been.
‘Canton Trendy: Artwork and Visible Tradition, 1900s–Seventies’ is at M+, Hong Kong, till October 05.
Foremost picture: M+, Hong Kong. Courtesy and {photograph}: Virgile Simon Bertrand and Herzog and de Meuron
