{"id":643621,"date":"2026-08-18T13:24:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T13:24:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/643621\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T13:24:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T13:24:19","slug":"you-cant-be-burdened-by-a-legacy-james-taylor-foster-on-his-vision-for-hong-kongs-para-site-as-it-turns-30-the-art-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/643621\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018You can\u2019t be burdened by a legacy\u2019: James Taylor-Foster on his vision for Hong Kong’s Para Site as it turns 30 – The Art Newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the Hong Kong non-profit Para Site<\/a> marks its 30th anniversary, it navigates a much-changed city under the new leadership of James Taylor-Foster. The 33-year-old British curator filled the seat of executive director last month\u2014which has been empty since last year\u2014of one of Hong Kong\u2019s longest-running independent art institutions.<\/p>\n

Taylor-Foster envisions Para Site\u2019s next chapter as \u201cboth a continuation and a rupture\u201d, framing contemporary art within a larger family of creative practices. His signature bleached blond hair and dark moustache, and extremely open online presence, are not the only unusual profiles that Taylor-Foster brings to the role.\u00a0Whereas recent directors emerged primarily from contemporary visual art, his background has involved architecture, design and digital culture, shaped by nearly a decade at\u00a0ArkDes<\/a>, Sweden\u2019s national museum for architecture and design that is affiliated with\u00a0Moderna Museet. There he co-curated projects including\u00a0Weird Sensation Feels Good: The World of ASMR<\/a>, an exhibition on sensory culture that toured internationally, including to Hong Kong last year, and contributed twice to the Nordic Pavilion at the\u00a0Venice Architecture Biennale.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe legacy [of Para Site] is undeniable, but of course you can\u2019t be burdened by a legacy,\u201d he says, suggesting that the institution must rethink how an independent art space remains distinct in a transformed cultural landscape.<\/p>\n

A changed cultural landscape<\/p>\n

Founded as an artist-run space in 1996 by seven Hong Kong artists, Para Site emerged at a moment when the city had few contemporary art spaces. Over time, it shifted from an artist-led initiative into a more curatorially driven institution, with internationally recognised directors including\u00a0Tobias Berger, Cosmin Costinas and Billy Tang helping to establish Para Site as a recognised platform in Asia and beyond. Meanwhile, Hong Kong\u2019s cultural landscape has expanded dramatically:\u00a0M+,\u00a0Tai Kwun\u00a0and\u00a0the Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile (CHAT)\u00a0have reshaped the institutional field, while commercial galleries proliferated after the launch of\u00a0Art Basel Hong Kong in 2013.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Para Site team, with new British director James Taylor-Foster in the centre \u00a9 2026 Ray Leung<\/p>\n

Ahead of his move to Asia, Taylor-Foster said listening would absorb his first months in Hong Kong, understanding what is needed and considering what Para Site is capable of being. If reinvention is inevitable, he suggests, it may also involve returning to an earlier impulse: contemporary art not simply as a specialised field, but as \u201cthe present interrogating itself\u201d. To him, that means creating room for practices that are more blended and porous\u2014across music, dance and live art.<\/p>\n

Lowering the threshold<\/p>\n

For Taylor-Foster, the challenge is less about scale than about how audiences encounter Para Site. \u201cI don\u2019t think Para Site should just be for a niche, contemporary art-educated audience,\u201d he says, adding that he wants to \u201clower the threshold of what it means to engage with what happens in Para Site without lowering the ambition of what it does\u201d. That may also shape exhibition formats: rather than adding to a city dense with thematic group exhibitions, he points to approaches that give artists greater control, where even \u201csimple gestures\u201d might reshape how audiences encounter the space.<\/p>\n

A move from Para Site\u2019s current Quarry Bay premises, where it has operated for the past decade, is now a priority, with Taylor-Foster saying the institution has pushed the space close to its limits. <\/strong>He frames relocation as an opportunity to rethink the programme and architecture together\u2014asking not how exhibitions fit a given space, but what kind of space Para Site\u2019s next phase might require.<\/p>\n

Taylor-Foster returns to ideas of generosity and support, suggesting that Para Site\u2019s next phase may depend on renewing the experimental spirit that first defined it. He describes that ethos of Para Site as \u201ca nurturing garden\u201d for developing artists and curators\u2014\u201cthe people who are going to be the cr\u00e8me de la cr\u00e8me\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the Hong Kong non-profit Para Site marks its 30th anniversary, it navigates a much-changed city under the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[267],"tags":[3312,365,362,256146,363,364,366,18,117,4202,19,17,272378],"class_list":["post-643621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-appointments","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-arts-organisations","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-hong-kong","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-para-site"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117116736396496325","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643621","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=643621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}