Beyond the physical expansion during Sir\u00e9n\u2019s tenure, the collection grew steadily, the museum\u2019s staff increased from 62 to nearly 200, the endowment ballooned from $31.3m in 2013 to $79.3m today, and annual visitor numbers reached 340,000 following the expansion.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s easy to point to the material facts like the campus expansion as an accomplishment, but I really look at the growth and evolution of the team,\u201d Sir\u00e9n says. \u201cWe’ve become a high-performance team and we\u2019ve emerged as an institution that is very committed to its local community and cares deeply about what happens here in Buffalo and Western New York. But at the same time, we are increasingly a player on various international and global platforms. And that’s not just me, that’s us together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Buffalo AKG\u2019s purview under Sir\u00e9n also expanded. After joining the museum in 2013, he launched a public art department that has since brought over 60 projects to Western New York. The following year, he introduced the Innovation Lab, a creative incubator that ran until 2020, bringing together arts, science and technology to address issues facing museums and communities more broadly.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/a76c7bedffabd944863ca2ace8d5a460cce47605-2000x1193.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
The Buffalo AKG Art Museum Photo by Jason O’Rear<\/p>\n
Sir\u00e9n also helped strengthen the museum\u2019s international relationships, launching the AKG Nordic Art and Culture Initiative in 2021. The platform organises exhibitions and programmes at the museum and in Buffalo to support artists with ties to the Nordic Region. In 2023, Buffalo AKG also bolstered its American network, establishing the National Council of supporters who act as ambassadors for the museum.<\/p>\n
Sir\u00e9n\u2019s tenure was not without challenges. Last year, the museum came under fire for laying off 13 employees<\/a> in what the union representing them alleged was retaliation against its members. (The museum denied that union membership factored into the layoffs and the National Labor Relations Board has to date not ruled on the incident.) Earlier this year, the Erie County Comptroller’s Office discovered<\/a> that Sir\u00e9n owed $335,000 to the museum for a home loan received as part of his recruitment package in 2013. A spokesperson for the museum says neither of these issues factored into Sir\u00e9n\u2019s decision to leave and confirmed that the loan has been paid back.<\/p>\n Reflecting on his time at the museum, Sir\u00e9n has overwhelmingly positive sentiments, noting that the challenges of being a director are not unique to the Buffalo AKG. \u201cI\u2019m sure many of my colleagues feel the same way that leading a museum is challenging,\u201d he says. \u201cYou have to strike a balance between the aspirations of an ambitious curatorial team and the budgetary means required to make their visions possible. You have to consider the work-life balance of your entire team. It\u2019s an archipelago of challenges that you must learn to sail through and not be disturbed by obstacles and failures.\u201d<\/p>\n As for Sir\u00e9n\u2019s life after Buffalo, he is looking beyond the role of museum director for the time being. \u201cI\u2019m not going to be prescriptive about the distant future, I still have years on the clock,\u201d he says. \u201cMy roots are in academia. The daily life of a director is intense minute to minute and there are things I\u2019ve said I\u2019d write one day, but that day never comes unless you make a decision for it to come. My inner voice tells me that I have an exciting next chapter to explore, but that\u2019s not my focus for the next six months.\u201d<\/p>\n While his professional plans are still, \u201ca dish that is not fully baked yet\u201d, Sir\u00e9n is eager to spend more time in nature. \u201cI will miss every single one of my team members,\u201d he says. \u201cI will miss the amazing collection. I will miss the community of wonderful people in Buffalo. I grew up spending time in the literal wilderness, taking solo hikes north of the Arctic Circle and diving in the North Atlantic. As director, I had very little time to be deep in nature and that is what I\u2019m looking forward to having time for.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After 13 years at the helm of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Janne Sir\u00e9n is stepping down from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[267],"tags":[11553,365,362,363,364,15940,195193,366,18,117,19,17,202447,7599,968],"class_list":["post-460047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-appointments-departures","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-buffalo","tag-buffalo-akg-art-museum","tag-design","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-janne-siren","tag-museums-heritage","tag-new-york"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116489328486557417","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}