Building a contemporary museum: learnings with Suhanya Raffel

From studying art history in Sydney to helming the Asia Pacific Triennial in Queensland and now leading Hong Kong’s M+, Suhanya Raffel shares her biggest career lessons.
Suhanya Raffel, Museum Director, M+. Photo: Winnie Yeung @ Visual Voices. Image: Courtesy M+, Hong Kong. Raffel against a green tiled architectural background. She is a middle-aged woman with long black and grey hair, wearing red lipstick and smiling at the camera. She is dressed in a black blazer with a white flower brooch.

Suhanya Raffel is the Museum Director of M+ Hong Kong, a flagship contemporary art museum in the heart of the West Kowloon Cultural District, now in its fourth year of presenting world class exhibitions and programming.

’I have always been interested in developing and expanding knowledge,’ continues Raffel. ‘When I was studying art history at the University of Sydney, I realised that what was taught did not include any of the histories that I had been a part of. I kept thinking, “How is that possible?”.’

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Celina Lei is ArtsHub's former Content Manager. She has previously worked across global art hubs in Beijing, Hong Kong and New York in both the commercial art sector and art criticism. She took part in drafting NAVA’s revised Code of Practice - Art Fairs, and was the project manager of ArtsHub’s diverse writers initiative, Amplify Collective. Celina is based in Naarm/Melbourne. Instagram: @lleizy_