Five Minutes with Chin Chin Teoh

Recently appointed as Director of Tai Kwun – Hong Kong’s Centre for Heritage and Arts, Chin Chin Teoh took some time to share her experiences and thoughts with us. Find out more about her appointment here.

Chin Chin Teoh

Congratulations on your appointment as Director of Tai Kwun! Tell us a bit more about your new role and your experience so far.

Chin Chin: The experience has been fantastic. Tai Kwun is such a meaningful site for many, many Hong Kongers—it is not just a heritage site that focuses only on history, but a living, thriving hub with year-round art and lifestyle programmes that I hope can bring joy, stimulation and inspiration to Hong Kong people. Managing Tai Kwun as a cultural destination that fosters openness, creativity, dialogue and engagement with Hong Kong people is an incredibly attractive mandate that I was keen to take up.

My experience so far has been wonderful as I see how motivated and dedicated the team and all our staff in Tai Kwun are, dedicating their best creative efforts and expertise to create this unique cultural experience that unites heritage, performing arts and contemporary art programmes all year round in one of the most important Asia Pacific UNESCO awarded sites.

You have a lot of experience in the banking industry. What made you decide to make the switch to working in the arts?

Chin Chin: As someone driven by curiosity, I always seek out new ways of doing things. When I was working in the private equity and investment banking I was highly excited to meet entrepreneurs, CEOs and management teams that are driven to create better products and better companies and I inquired and learnt about their industry and businesses before making investments in them. This range of exposure helped (me) to learn from the best success stories and the worst failure cases, which instilled in me a framework of thinking and questioning on how different models of organisations operated. This framework continues to apply, regardless whether they are for profit or non-profit organisations.

Driven by my own innate passion about the arts since I was a child, I have always been extremely curious about how non-profit art and cultural organisations are run as I was a constant visitor of museums and performing arts events whenever I was travelling. I was inspired by how these institutions could make a significant positive difference in encouraging social inclusivity and dialogue, enhancing global understanding of other cultures and opening our minds to question our own assumptions. I just wanted to be part of that force of positive transformation for our societies using art and culture as a medium to connect with people and lowers the barriers of access to arts for all, regardless whether they are initiated or uninitiated in the arts and cultural field.

Making the switch to art is hence a natural one, because I leveraged on management skillsets and experiences I had already developed in an area where I was truly passionate about. Having the experience of opening CHAT at the Mills and also the chance to manage Tai Kwun are really amazing opportunities that I am extremely grateful for and I love both experiences.

Tai Kwun (Footbridge Gate)

Tai Kwun has been lauded for its revitalisation and conservation efforts and received the Award of Excellence in the 2019 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation. As a living heritage site, how does the space influence the centre’s programming?

Chin Chin: Receiving the Award of Excellence in the 2019 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation was a tremendous achievement for Tai Kwun and a validation of the meticulous efforts at conservation and revitalisation. Conservation and revitalisation are only partly about the “hardware”—the site, the historical monuments, the buildings—but also about making the whole complex relevant, memorable, and loved by Hong Kong people. As you can imagine, it is easy to arouse people’s curiosity when we first opened; over the next few years, we will need to work very hard in order to sustain our visitors’ curiosity and interest through a forward thinking and well-conceived public programming strategy.

Ultimately, for Tai Kwun to develop into a cultural icon that Hong Kong people are proud of, the challenge is about how we develop our programming, content, and overall experience so that people will repeatedly come back and visit the space and we would like to have our visitors constantly expect a high quality of art and cultural experience at Tai Kwun to drive their repeat visit and loyalty as our fans. 

Fabric Workshop and Museum

Who is your favourite visual artist and why?

Chin Chin: To me, an artist is all-rounded, and so it is hard to single out one individual artist and say why he or she is the best. What I find myself drawn by a particular artwork, the most important part, I feel, is how it has a story to tell, a connection to its time in history, and an evocative, emotional and intellectual impact that inspire you to question your own assumptions and maybe even to look more into the topic.

I have a lot of different favourites from different periods of time and different places. It would be almost heartbreaking to single out one particular artist.  

If you could go back to one historical event to witness it, what would it be and why?

Chin Chin: I have thought about this a lot. I would go back 150 years from today, to the opening of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, now one of the most beloved and renowned art museums in the world. I would love to see how they were preparing for the opening and the debates and questions they asked when deciding on the vision and mission I would find it fascinating to juxtapose that against contemporary times to see how much perhaps that has evolved—and I would learn so much from that, as I am always curious about the dilemma and challenges that transpire in the minds of the management and decision makers when they were trying to shape the identity of an art and cultural institution.

What is your biggest personal takeaway so far from the COVID-19 pandemic?

Chin Chin: The COVID-19 pandemic has upturned our social interactions. I think the need for artistic and cultural connection is even more heightened in this situation as I believe art and cultural experiences have a huge impact on one’s emotional and mental health. I remember sometimes on my most stressful days before Covid times, how simply by experiencing a moving live solo cello performance or walking through an art exhibition, has the sublime effect of pure elevation of our spirits. Now while we are physically distanced from each other, we don’t have to be mentally “distant” from our society. While museum visits and live performances are not available, there is such a massive digital outreach by all these art and cultural practitioners through creative digital means, one has to only reach out in the virtual world to experience some of the amazing online art/culture programmes. I think that will have a profound impact in the way we all experience art and culture in the future and how institutions reach out to their global audience. In some sense, just as hospitals need to stay open at times when people are sick, there is, I believe, also a need for art museums and centres to continue to be available for people both digitally and physically. There is a need for spiritual and cultural healing, a sanctuary of sorts, at a stressful time like this. Tai Kwun is definitely investing its resources in bringing more of our content to be available on various platforms.