The Asia Foundation and Asian Art Museum Announce 2026 Margaret F. Williams Memorial Fellows in Asian Art

San Francisco, June 1, 2026—The Asia Foundation and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco are pleased to announce Yi Shun Lim of Malaysia and Sso-Rha Kang of the United States as the 2026 Margaret F. Williams Memorial Fellows in Asian Art.

Held every other year, the program supports two emerging curators—one from Asia and one from the United States—for a three-month residency and professional exchange at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco.

This year’s theme centers on community-centered curatorial practice: prioritizing curators whose work is grounded in community engagement and explores how curatorial practice can function as a form of relationship-building, shared knowledge production, and cultural exchange.

Meet the 2026 Fellows

Sso-Rha Kang is an American educator and curator based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and is presently the curator of The Carnegie in Covington, Kentucky. From 2021 to 2023, she was the director of galleries and outreach at Northern Kentucky University, where she curated exhibitions, performances, and public programs emphasizing cross-disciplinary collaboration. She has taught at the University of Cincinnati, the Art Academy of Cincinnati, and Northern Kentucky University and curated exhibitions for The Weston in Cincinnati; Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, California, and the Blaffer Art Museum in Houston, Texas. She was one of two consulting curators representing Ohio at the exhibition New Worlds: Women to Watch (2024) at the National Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., and recently served as curator-in-residence of KADIST’s Double Take program in San Francisco.

Yi Shun Lim is a Malaysian researcher focusing on Southeast Asian art. Her current research addresses questions of periodization, historiography, identity, and knowledge production. Yi Shun has presented at international venues, including the UCLA Art History Graduate Symposium and the 2023 Indonesia Council Open Conference at the University of Sydney. Her work is forthcoming in Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture. At the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she founded the Southeast Asian Arts and Culture Club and curated the Southeast Asian Film Festival to foster dialogue and exchange across Southeast Asian artistic networks. She earned an MA in modern and contemporary art history at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

About the Margaret F. Williams Memorial Fellows in Asian Art

Established by Asia Foundation President Emeritus Ambassador Haydn Williams, the fellowship honors Margaret F. Williams, whose appreciation for Asian art was shaped by her travels throughout the region. The fellowship reflects a broader commitment to advancing diversity, equity, and representation in the curatorial field while supporting a new generation of cultural leaders.

The fellowship includes a three-month residency at the Asian Art Museum and a $7,500 award supporting a self-designed study tour following the residency. The fellows will be hosted by the Contemporary Art Department under the guidance of Abby Chen, curator and head of contemporary art. Located in the heart of San Francisco, the Asian Art Museum is one of the world’s leading institutions dedicated to Asian and Asian American art and culture, with a collection spanning more than 20,000 works from across 48 countries.