Art Basel Hong Kong 2024, March 28

What Does it Mean to Decolonize an Institution?

Worldmaking Beyond the West

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Storm Janse van Rensburg, Senior Curator and Head of Curatorial Affairs, Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town Suhanya Raffel, Director, M+ Durjoy Rahman, Founder, Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation 
Moderated by X Zhu-Nowell, Artistic Director, Rockbund Art Museum 
Institutional leaders discuss their efforts to decenter Western narratives within the field of art by developing programming that illuminates new mappings and deeper understandings of local, regional, and global art histories and contemporary practices, away from inherited colonial structures. Storm Janse van Rensburg is a curator of contemporary art who has worked in South African and international contexts for the past 25 years. He currently serves as Senior Curator and Head of Curatorial Affairs at Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town, South Africa. He started his career at the Market Theatre Galleries, Johannesburg (1995-1999) and served as curator of the Kwazulu Natal Society of the Arts in Durban (2000-2006). He was a founding member of the Visual Arts Network of South Africa (VANSA) and senior curator at Goodman Gallery Cape Town (2007-2012). 



Suhanya Raffel is Museum Director, M+ in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District. Previously, Raffel was the Director of Collections and then Deputy Director at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia (2013–2016), and has held many senior curatorial positions, including Deputy Director of Curatorial and Collection Development and Acting Director at the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia (1994–2013). Here she was instrumental in building the contemporary Asia Pacific collection and led its Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art. 
Durjoy Rahman is the founder of Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation, an organization he established in 2018 with the aim of promoting art and artists from South Asia and the region in a critical and international cultural context. The foundation invests in programs that bring together cutting-edge art from various countries and is a growing conduit connecting art and artists from Asia, Europe, and beyond. The long-term aim is to build greater awareness for South Asian artists on the global stage, as Durjoy believes art can help unleash the boundless creativity that surrounds us and envelops our world. 
X Zhu-Nowell is a curator, writer, and institutional leader with a dynamic presence in both Shanghai and New York, currently serving as the Artistic Director at the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai. Zhu-Nowell is renowned for an innovative curatorial approach that emphasizes deep, collaborative engagements with contemporary artists. This is exemplified in the museum’s 2023 program, which centers around solo exhibitions and new commissions from six artists from Asia and its diaspora, including WangShui, Evelyn Taocheng Wang, Tosh Basco, Diane Severin Nguyen, Shubigi Rao, and Tan Jing. From 2014 to 2022, Zhu-Nowell was a curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, where they earned critical acclaim for the exhibition Wu Tsang: Anthem, celebrated as the best exhibition of 2021 by The New York Times. In 2022, Zhu-Nowell co-organized the 6th Asian Art Council meeting in Kingston, Jamaica, for the Guggenheim, collaborating with artist Kandis Williams to explore themes of dispossession and hybridity within curatorial practices and the white cube. The Art Basel Hong Kong 2024 Conversations program is curated by Stephanie Bailey.

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