News about CIMAM
Building a contemporary museum: learnings with Suhanya Raffel
Suhanya Raffel, President of CIMAM and Director of M+ Hong Kong, speaks with Celina Lei in an interview for ArtsHub about her career path, from studying art history in Sydney to leading M+ in Hong Kong, reflecting on her commitment to expanding knowledge and inclusion in the arts. Through her experiences in grassroots institutions and major museums, she underscores the importance of creating opportunities and advocating for change. Raffel discusses the influence of her Australian background on her approach to museum leadership, highlighting the groundbreaking work of the Asia-Pacific Triennial and Australian artists such as Archie Moore.
Excerpt from the interview:
Suhanya introduces the upcoming CIMAM 56th Annual Conference to be held in Los Angeles this December. The theme, ‘Sustainable Futures: How? When and for Whom?’ will ground the discussions and provide ‘a moment to reflect on what museums of modern and contemporary art are doing in terms of adding knowledge and drawing on history,’ says Raffel.
‘In Los Angeles, we can face to the Pacific and hear about Indigenous knowledge in relation to sustainability issues – it’s a critical voice that we need to make space for.’
The Conference Content Steering Committee includes Suzanne Cotter, Director, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Aram Moshayedi, Interim Chief Curator, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Clara Kim (Chair of the Contents Committee), Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and more. It will also engage with programs and practitioners as part of LA’s Pacific Standard Time festival, PST ART: Art & Science Collide.
The Conference will not only draw on frameworks for environmental sustainability in museum operation, but also social sustainability. Raffel adds that the conversation extends to ‘issues to wellbeing and knowledge development’, and ‘diversity is critical in that framework’.
New UN partnership signed in Venice places visual arts sector at heart of climate battle
This article, written by Louise Buck for The Art Newspaper, highlights the launch of an important new initiative linking the international art world with the United Nations (UN) in a dual bid to combat climate change.
"The initiative is centred around the Art Charter for Climate Action (ACCA), an agreement which aligns the art industry with the environmental terms of the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. That agreement was signed in September last year, but at the Hope Forum 2024 gathering on 19 April, it was taken a step further with the announcement that the ACCA Founding Alliance, which formed the agreement, would be officially partnering with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the UN’s environmental arm. This is a significant new development that confirms the visual arts sector as a serious force in tackling the climate crisis."