Grace Lai

Grace Lai is an Art Historian and Curator at Auckland Museum. She leads the exhibition, curation and development of the Applied Arts and Design collection, a nationally significant research archive of key makers and designers from New Zealand and abroad. Her research primarily engages with material culture as a decoder for the immaterial, a philosophy developed during her time in London as an Alphawood Scholar at SOAS, University of London. Currently, she is working on extending Art Historical accounts of New Zealand art through marginalised accounts, focusing on narratives of Chinese-New Zealand artists as well as New Zealand design. Her exhibition experience has seen her curate shows in various institutions across Auckland, London and Singapore.

As part of the AAAH2018 Symposium @ Te Papa, Grace Lai was part of the Distant Relatives panel, in conversation with Professor Yiyan Wang, Balamohan Shingade and Emma Ng.