Aric Chen is lead curator for design and architecture at M+, the new museum of visual culture under construction in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District slated for completion in 2019. Aric Chen joins on Tuesday night for MTalks—Design and architecture from an Asian (museum’s) point of view and ahead of his arrival we asked him some questions.

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MPavilion: Tell us about M+ and your role.

Aric Chen: M+ is a new museum of 20th and 21st century visual culture currently under construction in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District. By visual culture, we mean visual art, moving image, and design and architecture—the latter being the area that my team and I focus on—and we look at these disciplines globally, but from our vantage point in Asia. I realise this is quite a mouthful. But I hope what we’re doing will seem clear to everyone once we open our Herzog & de Meuron-designed building at the end of 2019. In the meantime, we’re already mounting exhibitions at our new M+ Pavilion—as opposed to MPavilion—in Hong Kong. Please come and visit us there.

MPavilion: What are your hopes for M+?

Aric: Early on we were told to “make the museum that Asia doesn’t have.” I suppose we’ve held to that, and in doing so, I think first and foremost we’re aiming to tell the lesser-known narratives of visual culture in Asia, and in Asia in relationship to the wider world, while revisiting global narratives that might otherwise be taken for granted. I see us as adding another voice and perspective that’s situated locally, but framed globally—and in that sense, perhaps we’re also trying to make a museum that’s rare in the world.

MPavilion: What is the greatest challenge you have overcome so far in your role?

Aric: Building a design and architecture collection from scratch.

MPavilion: And your most rewarding moment?

Aric: Building a design and architecture collection from scratch.

MPavilion: What do you want out of a museum that’s “rare in the world”? Are there other museums and institutions you draw inspiration from?

Aric: We look to a lot of other museums and institutions, all of whom are trying new things in different ways. But it’s a matter of adapting strategies, and developing new ones, in a way that’s rooted in where we are in the world while speaking to a global audience. Being outside of a Western context, I think that makes us perhaps not entirely unique, but rare.

MPavilion: Can you tell us more about what you mean by the “lesser known” narratives of visual culture in Asia?

Aric: Within the broader canon, so to speak, we’re placing focus on practitioners who were perhaps previously seen as being on the margins—whether it’s South and Southeast Asian modernist architects, or even Japanese designers who aren’t as well-known as they ought to be. We’re also looking at even less-charted territory: things like design under communism, copying as a creative process, neon signs as visual culture, and so on.

Meet Aric Chen at MTalks—Design and architecture from an Asian (museum’s) point of view on Tuesday 7 February at 6.15pm.