ArtReview sat down with the organisation’s new executive director Özge Ersoy to talk sustainability, accessibility and future methodologies
Asia Art Archive (AAA) is a Hong Kong-based independent non-profit organisation ‘initiated in response to the urgent need to document and make accessible the multiple recent histories of art in the region’. With an archive of over 140,000 records, AAA has one of the most valuable collections of material on art that is freely available on its website and in its onsite library. The organisation’s ethos centres on expanding knowledge through research, residency and educational programmes.
This year, while AAA celebrates its 25th anniversary with a public programme titled Archive for All: Growing with Communities (beginning this Autumn), the organisation also welcomes Özge Ersoy as its new Executive Director. Ersoy takes the mantle from Christopher K. Ho, who held this role for four years. Ersoy joined the Asia Art Archive team in 2017 as Public Programmes Lead, later taking on the role of Mimi Brown & Alp Erçil Senior Curator. Her recent projects include co-curating In Our Own Backyard (2025) and Countering Time (2024) at AAA’s library. Ersory’s research focuses on collecting, exhibition-making and publishing in contemporary art. Her work with AAA has led her to collaborate with various non-profit organisations, including art centres, biennials and grant-making foundations in Hong Kong and abroad. Prior to joining AAA, Ersoy was Curator and Programme Manager of collectorspace, Istanbul. She holds an MA in Curatorial Studies from the Centre for Curatorial Studies at Bard College.
ArtReview Firstly, congratulations on your new role spearheading Asia Art Archive! It will be exciting to see what you’ll do with the programming. What are your immediate plans?
Özge Ersoy Thank you, ArtReview! I’m stepping into this role at a milestone: AAA’s 25th anniversary. It’s a moment to celebrate our strong foundations and reimagine the future. Starting this fall, we’re presenting anniversary programmes with artists, educators and researchers – projects reflecting on AAA’s impact while opening space for experimentation. We’ve also launched the D-Lab, our new digitisation and archiving facility, which doubles our preservation capacity and trains the next generation of archivists. My focus is connecting celebration with reinvention, keeping the archive alive, activated and widely shared.
AR You’re stepping into leadership as AAA turns 25 – how do you hope to build on AAA’s strategic plan while also shaping its future in ways that reflect your own vision?
ÖE AAA’s strategic plan gives us a strong foundation: expanding collections, deepening access and strengthening sustainability. I aim to amplify these priorities through collaboration, care and curiosity – building deeper, longer-term partnerships across Asia, activating archives through exhibitions, publishing and educational initiatives, and keeping accessibility central. For me, the archive is about people – it’s a space where knowledge is created collectively, linking communities, generations and geographies. AAA’s role is to remain both custodian and dynamic laboratory of Asia’s art histories.
AR With the launch of the new digitisation lab and expanded collections, how do you see AAA’s role in shaping future methodologies of archiving in Asia, especially in balancing local, regional and global perspectives?
ÖE Archiving today is about more than preservation; it’s about collaboration, activation and making knowledge usable. D-Lab pilots workflows that respond to local needs – digitising fragile materials, working across languages – while contributing to regional and global conversations on artistic legacies and digital preservation. AAA treats archives as living, porous structures: grounded in local context, attentive to communities and in dialogue across borders. Our goal is to highlight lesser visible histories and show that archiving methodologies can be interconnected, adaptable and reflective of Asia’s diverse art ecologies.
AR You’ve described AAA as embodying generosity and collaboration. How will you translate these values into concrete actions that empower communities to actively participate in preserving their artistic legacies?
ÖE Generosity and collaboration mean giving communities tools and agency. Concretely, this means co-developing archives with artists, estates and partner institutions so that materials are preserved with sensitivity to their contexts. It also means creating practical tools that make preservation more accessible to those who may not think of themselves as archivists. Just as importantly, we build platforms for circulation – through exhibitions, publications, mobile libraries and digital access – so archives spark dialogue, reuse and new connections. At the heart of this is a simple principle: art histories should be written not just about communities but with them, honouring their voices and ensuring their legacies remain alive.
AR The series Archive for All: Growing with Communities highlights both reflection and forward-looking initiatives. Which part of this programme personally resonates with you as you take on the director role?
ÖE What resonates most is the idea that archives grow with their communities – they’re never static or complete. Archive for All, our 25th anniversary programmes, captures this openness, pairing reflective projects with experimental activations by artists, archivists, educators and researchers. It aligns with how I see AAA’s future: rigorous yet porous, reflective yet forward-looking. Archives are living practices, and users who engage with them are as vital as the materials themselves.
AR Projects like At 25 and Hong Kong Art: A Curator’s History reframe history through personal and collective memory. How do you see AAA balancing scholarship with lived experience in constructing art histories?
ÖE Art history lives as much in memory, practice and lived experience as it does in texts. AAA brings scholarship and lived experience together, creating layered, inclusive narratives. A great example is Oscar Ho’s Hong Kong Art: A Curator’s History (working title), to be published by Rizzoli International Publications, with AAA supporting research, archival material gathering and translation. Blending his scholarship with personal memory as an artist and curator active since the 1980s, the book demonstrates how rigorous research and lived experience can coexist – an approach that guides AAA’s work across its collections and programmes.
AR The upcoming ‘Archiving Handbook’ workshops aim to give artists practical preservation tools. How do you see artists’ own archiving practices transforming the future of contemporary art history?
ÖE A major part of AAA Collections comprises artists’ archives – what we call nexus artists, who connect communities through their roles as organisers, writers, curators and educators. When artists archive themselves, they shape how their practice, peers and legacies are understood, bringing intimacy, multiplicity and sometimes resistance into art history. With our forthcoming ‘Archiving Handbook’, we aim to equip the next generation of artists with practical tools and guidance, empowering them as co-authors of history so that future narratives reflect their voices alongside scholarly and institutional perspectives.
AR AAA has grown from a single bookshelf to around 140,000 records. What will it take to ensure the archive remains both sustainable as an institution and freely accessible to the widest public?
ÖE Sustainability requires both strong foundations and adaptability. This means cultivating long-term relationships with artists, scholars, educators, institutions, patrons and supporters who share our vision. I’m particularly excited about upcoming collaborations with partners in mainland China, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand and the UAE, which will strengthen regional networks and knowledge exchange. Sustainability also means investing in digital and physical infrastructure to keep the archive free and open – both onsite in Hong Kong and online, accessible to all. Accessibility is central: it ensures AAA continues to grow, stay relevant and serve communities globally, now and for generations to come.
AR Colleagues describe you as embodying integrity, empathy and collaboration. Can you tell us about your leadership style and what kind of organisational culture you’d like to cultivate at AAA?
ÖE The most important lesson I’ve learned over eight years at AAA is that archives are ultimately about people. Our greatest strength is our team – researchers, archivists, librarians, educators, curators, editors and administrators – deeply committed to AAA’s vision. As director, I aim to nurture this diversity, building on the culture of generosity fostered by AAA’s former directors Claire Hsu and Christopher K. Ho. My goal is a team that is empowered, encouraged to experiment and united with a shared purpose: keeping art histories accessible, inclusive and alive.
