Karen Wong

Chief Creative Officer, Guilty by Association (GBA), New York 

Karen Wong’s tenure at the New Museum, where she has served as deputy director since 2012, has seen the museum continue to broaden its platforms for the promotion of innovative thinking and art-making. Initiatives that Wong has co-founded at the museum include IdeasCity – a residency programme begun in 2011 that explores the future of the metropolis – and New Inc (2014), the first museum-led incubator for art, technology and design. Most recently, Wong has been instrumental in creating the ONX Studio, which opened in 2020; the studio provides scope for 24 artists and producers to develop extended-reality works over a year-long term. This autumn, Wong will leave the New Museum to become chief creative officer of Guilty By Association (GBA) – a creative start-up that she has co-founded, and which rethinks access to the art world for marginalised communities. Wong sits on the boards of various non-profits, among them Apex for Youth, a mentoring programme for young people of Asian origin from low-income families in New York, and Rhizome, a platform for digital art.

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