• Around Town Home
• What's On
• Features
• 
• 
• Bookmark this site

31 years old, arts administrator

Claire Hsu is a hero of tomorrow. In the vortex left by the government’s lacklustre involvement in the development of Hong Kong’s contemporary art scene, she has been forging ahead in building a hub of critical thinking for the city with the Asia Art Archive. She founded the non-profit organisation in 2000, and is now the executive director, having built  it into one of the region’s leading resources for contemporary Asian art.

How does Hsu feel about being named a hero? “Honoured and embarrassed!” she says. “I have never thought of myself of a hero, just somebody who is very lucky to be doing a job that I both love and that hopefully will make a difference to how art is perceived in the community.”

Hsu is more at ease in discussing the current state of the art scene: “As well as a robust art market, it is very important to develop a diversity of independent platforms that show, think, and give the public an opportunity to learn about the most exciting contemporary art being produced today,” she argues. “Art needs to be a way of life and not perceived as a luxury only. This is where art education plays an important part. The government is about to embark on a major cultural project in West Kowloon, and this is an enormous opportunity for developing Hong Kong in to a cultural as well as a business centre. For this to be successful, the following needs to be valued above all else: professionalism, risk-taking, excellence, and creative independence. We need to stop focusing on the hardware and give the right people and organisations the right tools to develop the software. We need to build cultural institutions that the public feel they are a part of. It has to be a multi-tiered approach, where we support the many layers within the ecology that make up the art scene in Hong Kong as we know it.” If only people at the LCSD spoke like this… Clare Morin