Lydia Yee Takes the Helm at New Kuala Lumpur Non-Profit

Curator Lydia Yee has been appointed artistic director of Muara Arts, a new non-profit gallery dedicated to Southeast Asian modern and contemporary art that will open in Kuala Lumpur on 1 November.

Yee was formerly chief curator of Whitechapel Gallery, where she oversaw modern and contemporary exhibitions, artist commissions, collection and archival displays, and publications. She previously spent eight years as a curator at Barbican Art Gallery, co-curating Bauhaus: Art as Life (2012), a major survey spanning art, design and architecture. At Muara, she will help to determine the organisation’s mission, gallery spaces and exhibitions programme from the outset.

“I was drawn to the opportunity to develop a new art space in Southeast Asia from the ground up,” Yee told Ocula. “Most curators don’t have the chance to build something new.”

Muara was established by lawyer Shanthi Kandiah and private-equity executive Brahmal Vasudevan through the Creador Foundation, and will occupy approximately 1,860 square metres (20,000 square feet) across six restored Art Deco shophouses in Medan Pasar—the old market square around which Kuala Lumpur’s original township developed in the 19th century. The space’s programme will encompass rotating solo and group exhibitions, commissions, learning initiatives and publications.

It will open with A–Z of Southeast Asian Art: A Critical Dictionary, a group exhibition featuring works by more than 40 artists across painting, sculpture, textiles, installation, video and works on paper. The exhibition takes its alphabetical structure from Singaporean artist Ho Tzu Nyen’s The Critical Dictionary of Southeast Asia (2017–ongoing), an algorithmically composed video project that uses 26 concepts and motifs to question how Southeast Asia is defined and narrated. The participating artists have yet to be announced.

Muara’s non-profit model has precedent in the city. ILHAM, founded in 2015 and operated by the non-profit Yayasan ILHAM since 2019, presents Malaysian modern and contemporary art alongside other regional practices and offers free admission to public.

Muara also joins a recent wave of privately backed art institutions across Southeast Asia, including Bangkok Kunsthalle, which opened in 2024, Dib Bangkok in December 2025, and the Kontempo Center for Contemporary Art, now under development in Manila.

“Southeast Asia is an incredibly dynamic region for art today. The region is home to so many talented artists and curators and the art ecosystem now offers the conditions for them to thrive,” Yee said. “And the audience for art is young, enthusiastic and open to new experiences.”