James Taylor-Foster Takes the Helm at Hong Kong’s Para Site
James Taylor-Foster. © 2026 by Ray Leung. CC BY-ND 4.0.
Since Billy Tang departed Hong Kong’s Para Site for London’s Yan Du Projects last year, speculation has swirled over who would replace him as executive director of the non-profit art space, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. The answer, it was announced today, is James Taylor-Foster.
The 33-year-old London-born curator comes from an architectural background. His first step into the art world came about a decade ago while assisting with In Therapy at the Venice Architecture Biennale, where a truncated step-pyramid occupied the Nordic Pavilion.
A statement described his current curatorial practice as “rooted in the belief that cultural leadership today means listening closely, facilitating generously, and imagining with courage”.
In his own statement, Taylor-Foster said: “Para Site is one of a kind. Its roots as an artist-founded cultural space, born from a unique condition with local and regional creative scenes as its engine, remains its soul.
“Today, as then, contemporary art is our present interrogating itself. At its most powerful, it makes room for thinking in public and radiates outward into culture at large.”
In 2018 Taylor-Foster joined ArkDes in Stockholm as curator of contemporary architecture and design, working alongside Moderna Museet, a role he held until this move to Hong Kong.
His exhibitions have ranged widely in subject and tone. Projects such as Cruising Pavilion: Architecture, Gay Sex and Cruising Culture (2019) examined queer spatial politics, while WEIRD SENSATION FEELS GOOD: The World of ASMR (2020–25) traced how a niche internet phenomenon evolved into a global sensory culture.
His latest exhibition, Worldglimpsing: Roleplay and the Design of Alternate Realities (2025–27), opened in Stockholm and will travel to the Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam later this year.
As Para Site enters its fourth decade, Alan Lo, chair of the organisation’s board, described Taylor-Foster’s appointment as forward-looking, and called the curator “a rare combination of curatorial imagination and institutional stewardship”.
What began in 1996 as an artist-run experiment by seven Hong Kong artists, has become one of the region’s most influential contemporary art institutions. Over the years, Para Site has organised more than 300 exhibitions and 1000 public programmes—all free to attend.
Several of its former directors, including Cosmin Costinas and Tobias Berger, have since emerged as key figures in the Asian art world.
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