How was CIMAM 2019?

Titled The 21st Century Art Museum: Is Context Everything? the CIMAM 2019 Annual Conference was held in Sydney, Australia on 15 – 17 November, hosted by the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. An optional post-conference tour was organized to Meeanjin & Minjerribah (Brisbane & North Stradbroke Island) on 18–19 November.

A total of 200 delegates from 40 different countries attended CIMAM’s 2019 Annual Conference in Sydney.

In 2019, 24 modern and contemporary art museum professionals residing in 14 different countries were awarded support to attend the Annual Conference through the CIMAM Travel Grant Program.

The three-day program included three keynote speakers, nine perspective presentations, three panel discussions, a networking and a workshop session as well as a walking tour and organized visits to the art institutions of the city.

Keynote speakers included

  • Wesley Enoch, Enoch, Artistic Director, Sydney Festival, Sydney, Australia
  • Franklin Sirmans, Director, Pérez Art Museum Miami, USA
  • Sally Tallant, Director, The Queens Museum, New York, USA

Perspective presentations included

  • Wanda Nanibush, Curator of Indigenous Art, Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), Toronto, Canada
  • Ngahiraka Mason, Independent Indigenous Curator & Visual Historian, Hira, Honolulu, Hawaii
  • Lisa Reihana, Ngāpuhi artist, Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa / New Zealand
  • Hannah Mathews, Senior Curator, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne, Australia
  • Anne Loxley, Senior Curator, C3West, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, Australia
  • Tony Albert, Kuku Yalanji artist, Sydney, Australia
  • Lara Strongman, Director, Curatorial and Digital, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia

Panel moderators included

  • Stephen Gilchrist, Associate Lecturer, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
  • Suhanya Raffel, Director, M+ Museum, Hong Kong, China
  • Lee Weng Choy, Art critic, writer, president AICA Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

The afternoon program included visits to Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Carriageworks, Art Gallery of New South WalesArtspace Sydney, Firstdraft, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art and Redfern District.

The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Carriageworks and the Art Gallery of New South Wales were the reception hosts.