Museum director (2024 - )
LAU Fung Ha, Lesley PhD
Dr. Lau received her PhD in Chinese art history from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and a Graduate Diploma in Museum Studies from the University of Sydney. She is also a JS Lee Fellow of the Bei Shan Tang Foundation. As an art museum curator, she was Head of the Art Promotion Office (APO) and the founding curator of the APO and the artspace Oi! in Hong Kong. She has worked for the Hong Kong Museum of Art, the Hong Kong Heritage Museum, the Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre and the Heritage & Museums Division of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department. Her M. Phil thesis, “From Revolution to Art: the Study of Shi Lu” (1919 – 1982), was awarded the Outstanding Thesis from the Graduate Division of Fine Arts, CUHK. In 1994, she was selected to join the International Partnership Among Museums Program of the American Association of Museums. In 2009 and 2011, she worked as a research fellow in the Phillips Library of the Peabody Essex Museum under the Library’s fellowship programme and then in The British Museum under the J. S. Lee Memorial Fellowship Programme. She has published her academic research on Chinese export art and trade port culture from the 17th to early 20th centuries at symposiums.
Dr. Lau has been actively involved in both traditional and contemporary art fields, leading a team dedicated to promoting the development of visual arts in Hong Kong and exploring new curatorial directions for the 21st century. With the idea and concept of urban regeneration and social innovation, she and her teams organised numerous public and community art projects both locally and internationally. Many projects got international and local recognition, including the artspace Oi! being selected as "The Best Public Space 2016” of Hong Kong, the "XCHANGE: Social Gastronomy" project receiving the “Best 100 – Good Design Award 2016” in Japan and the "City Dress-up: Seats۰Together" project winning the “Design for Asia Awards 2018 – Grand Award with Special Mention”, among others. Dr. Lau frequently shares her artistic and curatorial philosophy with different fields through lectures locally and also outside Hong Kong, including "Sensitivity of the Masses – Empathy for Museum Activities" at the Lingnan Cultural Lectures in the Guangdong Museum in 2015, "Hong Kong Chapter: Urban Dialogue – The Everyday Language of the Public" at the Fubon Art Foundation's Art Museum Without Walls Forum in Taiwan and also "Urban Revitalisation and Social Innovation: Engagement of the New Generation" at the 2018 International Museum Day in Macau and "Art and Culture in Village Revitalisation" at the 2023 Countryside Conservation Conference, etc. Her attempt in recent years has been on the sustainability of building resonance and engaging community with traditional Chinese art in contemporary context, for which she spoke on "Latitude and Longitude of Curating: Traditional Chinese Art in Contemporary Communal Artspaces" at the 8th Forum for Curators of Chinese Art in 2023. Because of her accomplishments over the years, she was invited to speak at “CUHK ARTS 60th Anniversary Distinguished Alumni Lectures Series” under the topic of “Art Flâneur’s Footprints” in 2024.
Sun Museum has moved to its new site in Sai Yuen Lane since October 2024. Dr. Lau is appointed Director of the new Sun Museum.
