“What Do Collections Mean to Museums?”

M+, at the West Kowloon Cultural District, announces the symposium “What Do Collections Mean to Museums?,” a collaboration with the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, through the global partnership initiative M+ International. The symposium, held in Tokyo on September 25–26, 2019, consists of a two-day invitation-only conference followed by a public discussion.

The symposium is convened by Doryun Chong (Deputy Director, Curatorial, and Chief Curator, M+) and Kataoka Mami (Deputy Director and Chief Curator, Mori Art Museum) with Yokoyama Ikko (Lead Curator, Design and Architecture, M+), and it provides a platform for museum professionals to discuss current issues facing museums and to inspire new ways of thinking about the meaning of museum collections. By focusing on institutions in the Asia Pacific region as case studies, the symposium intends to stimulate creative discussion on the potential of museum collections today.

Reflecting on ideas raised during the two-day conference, the public discussion, titled “What Is the New Thinking around Collections in Modern and Contemporary Museums in Asia?,” takes museums of different regional, historical, and financial backgrounds, and different administrative structures, as a starting point. Examining the activities of these museums can inform investigations of new models and future possibilities for museum collections. 

The symposium includes the participation of Gridthiya Gaweewong (Artistic Director, Jim Thompson Art Center), Horikawa Lisa (Deputy Director of Collections Development, National Gallery Singapore), Hosaka Kenjiro (Curator, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo), Kasahara Michiko (Vice Director, Artizon Museum), Kitazawa Tomoto (Chief, Museum Materials Section, Museum & Library Group, Musashino Art University), Kuroda Raiji (Curator and Executive Director, Department of Operation and Management, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum), Jihoi Lee (Curator, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, Seoul), Matsunaga Shintaro (Curator, Yokohama Museum of Art), Miki Akiko (International Artistic Director, Benesse Art Site Naoshima), Ota Kayoko (Curator, CCA c/o Tokyo, Canadian Centre for Architecture), Aaron Seeto (Director, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara), Seki Naoko (Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo), Sugaya Tomio (Deputy Director, Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka Planning Office), Suzuki Kota (Curator, Pola Museum of Art), Uematsu Yuka (Curator, National Museum of Art, Osaka), and Yanagisawa Hideyuki (Chief Curator, Ohara Museum of Art).

M+ International was launched in May 2019 as an initiative to create partnerships and collaborations, and to expand connections with regions beyond Hong Kong. The initiative aims to generate a broader international resonance for M+, whose Herzog & de Meuron–designed building will be operational in just over a year. The first M+ International event, a moving image programme titled The Hidden Pulse, was co-curated by M+ and the Sydney Opera House as part of the opera house’s annual Vivid LIVE programme, and took place in Sydney between 29 May and 2 June 2019. Further public programmes with international institutions in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and North America will be announced in early 2020.

For more details on the symposium, please click here.

About M+
M+ is a museum dedicated to collecting, exhibiting, and interpreting visual art, design and architecture, moving image, and Hong Kong visual culture of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District, we are building one of the largest museums of modern and contemporary visual culture in the world, with a bold ambition to establish ourselves as one of the world’s leading cultural institutions. Our aim is to create a new kind of museum that reflects our unique time and place, a museum that builds on Hong Kong’s historic balance of the local and international to define a distinctive and innovative voice for Asia’s twenty-first century.

About the West Kowloon Cultural District
The West Kowloon Cultural District is one of the largest and most ambitious cultural projects in the world. Its vision is to create a vibrant new cultural quarter for Hong Kong on forty hectares of reclaimed land located alongside Victoria Harbour. With a varied mix of theatres, performance spaces, and museums, the West Kowloon Cultural District will produce and host world-class exhibitions, performances, and cultural events, providing 23 hectares of public open space, including a two-kilometre waterfront promenade.

About the Mori Art Museum
The Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, opened in 2003 symbolically atop the Roppongi Hills Mori Tower skyscraper, a noted landmark of Tokyo, with the aim of becoming a pioneering international museum of contemporary art with special significance for Asia. It has since then developed its own distinctive approach to art activities, embracing the concepts of “contemporary” and “international” and is committed to presenting a wide range of exhibitions and learning programs that feature cutting-edge visual arts, architecture, and design in a global perspective. The intention of the Mori Art Museum’s continuing “Art + Life” principle is to realise an enriched society where art relates to all aspects of life.