A New Chapter
“Magic is possible within an archive,” says Claire Hsu. She would know. As co-founder and executive director of Asia Art Archive (AAA), a non-profit organisation dedicated to documenting the region’s art history, Hsu has watched children’s eyes light up when they open a book and learn about artists who are not long-dead men in faraway Europe, but people living today in their home towns. She has met academics who became ecstatic after finding rare documents that led their research in unexpected new directions. And she has seen audiences of all ages sit spellbound by artists explaining how their work can open doors to whole new worlds.
“It has been an amazing journey,” says Hsu, who launched AAA in 2000, when she was just 24, and is now preparing to hand it over to a new leader as the organisation marks its 20th anniversary. She will become co-chair of the board with Benjamin Cha and hopes a new executive director will be in place by the summer. Mimi Brown, the founder of arts organisation Spring Workshop and a long-term AAA board member, is leading the search for the new director. “This is not something I’ve decided overnight; it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a number of years,” says Hsu. “Part of successfully establishing the organisation was making sure it can continue into the future, well beyond my
