IAC Art Talks Series 2 Lecture Two : Rethinking the Chinese Art Curator’s Role: A Case Study in Australia by Yin Cao (Catch up Online)
This event was held on Thursday 11 April 2024
Abstract
Traditionally a curator is seen as a keeper of a museum or a collection and an organiser of an exhibition. With a new definition being adopted by the International Council of Museums in 2022, in which a museum is expected to be in service of a broader society and its audience with diverse cultural and social political backgrounds, a curator in a public museum is required to re-evaluate his/her/their role to meet this new challenge and opportunity. A curator is one active member of a museum team whose goal is to offer varied experiences for education, enjoyment, reflection and knowledge sharing through exhibition and public engagement programs which reflect the broader communities’ interests.
Art Gallery of New South Wales is a leading museum in Australia in collecting and showcasing Chinese art and culture since its establishment over 150 years ago. The Chinese collection covering the prehistorical period to contemporary time continues to increase and broaden. Its extraordinary record of showing Chinese exhibitions demonstrates the Gallery’s strong commitment to promoting Chinese culture and engaging greater China.
Based on the experience of working at the AGNSW for more than 12 years, this talk reviewed the foundational definition of a curator and explored contemporary topics which have impact on the curatorial practice, as well as the working relationships within the institutional culture and with the relevant stakeholders. It demonstrated how a Curator of Chinese Art can play an important role in social engagement, community collaboration and the co-creation of exhibitions, as well as highlighting the challenges and limitations of conducting research projects using digital platforms.
About the Speaker
Yin Cao has been the Curator of Chinese Art at AGNSW since August 2011. Prior to that she was the Deputy Director at the Arthur M.Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology at Peking University, Beijing, China, and taught museology at Peking University. Before moving to Australia she was a researcher at the University Museum of the National University of Singapore as well as working as an art professional in Japan. Trained as an archaeologist at Peking University and Harvard University, Yin has participated in several archaeological excavations both in China and Israel. She received museum management training at the Smithsonian Institution and the Freer/Sackler Gallery in Washington, DC. She has curated numerous exhibitions both in China, Singapore and Australia, including: the inaugural exhibition at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology at Peking University (1993); “A Silk Road Saga: the sarcophagus of Yu Hong” (2013), “Tang: treasures from the Silk Road capital”（2016), “Heaven and Earth in Chinese art: treasures from the National Palace Museum, Taipei” (2019), and “The Way We Eat” (2021). For all these exhibitions Yin wrote and edited the catalogues. She is on the Board of the Museum of Chinese in Australia, and a member of the Advisory Board for the National Foundation for Australia-China Relations.
