Business Finance Media Technology Policy Wealth Insights Interviews

Art Art Fairs Art Market Art Reviews Auctions Galleries Museums Interviews

Lifestyle Nightlife & Dining Style Travel Interviews

Power Index Nightlife & Dining Art A.I. PR

About About Observer Advertise With Us Reprints

James Taylor-Foster On Curatorial Fluidity and Para Site’s Next Chapter

Poised to take the helm of the organization, he outlined a vision rooted in interdisciplinarity, nomadism and the evolving conditions of contemporary culture.

Last month, Hong Kong’s most historic independent arts organization, Para Site, named its new executive director: James Taylor-Foster, who will lead its next chapter as the non-profit enters its 30th anniversary. He belongs to a generation of millennial art professionals who combine international backgrounds with a fluid approach to their roles and move easily between disciplines. Taylor-Foster’s practice bridges contemporary art, design, architecture and digital culture, embracing a notion of contemporaneity that can only be understood through its in-betweenness. This interplay between fields aligns well with an organization like Para Site, which over the years has built a reputation as a leading platform for independent expression and experimentation, both in Hong Kong and more broadly.

Sign Up For Our Daily Newsletter

Thank you for signing up!

By clicking submit, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge we may use your information to send you emails, product samples, and promotions on this website and other properties. You can opt out anytime.

“I think fluidity is really important,” Taylor-Foster told Observer when we met during Hong Kong Art Week. “We have to accept the texture in which artists and creatives are working today: a fully de-siloed, interdisciplinary practice.” The traditional separation of contemporary art into distinct branches—visual art, design, architecture and digital culture—might still matter, he told Observer, but engaging with each discipline now requires adopting a wider lens. “We need to see that all of these form part of contemporary culture, and also of popular culture, which is a very important thread in my work,” he added, pointing to the need to “operate between cracks.”

Before joining Para Site, he was a senior curator at ArkDes in Stockholm, where he played a key role in repositioning architecture exhibitions away from static, disciplinary presentations toward immersive, cross-disciplinary formats. His curatorial and artistic projects have embraced fluidity in different ways, exploring questions of queer belonging and operating at the critical intersection where creativity meets new developments in technology and popular culture, all contextualized within today’s urban experience. His most recent group........

© Observer