{"id":36657,"date":"2026-03-16T14:31:35","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T06:31:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=36657"},"modified":"2026-03-16T14:31:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T06:31:35","slug":"james-taylor-foster-para-sites-wild-card-director-on-beautiful-paradox-of-hong-kong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=36657","title":{"rendered":"James Taylor-Foster, Para Site\u2019s \u2018wild card\u2019 director, on \u2018beautiful paradox\u2019 of Hong Kong"},"content":{"rendered":"
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With his peroxide blond hair, dark moustache and luxuriant eyebrows, London-born curator and writer James Taylor-Foster is easy to pick out among the tourists and selfie-takers in the courtyard of Yick Cheong Building, also known as the \u201cMonster Building\u201d, in Hong Kong\u2019s Quarry Bay neighbourhood.<\/p>\n
The South China Morning Post is meeting the 33-year-old here shortly after the board of the Hong Kong non-profit art space Para Site chose him to be its next executive director. That space, a few minutes\u2019 walk away, is off-limits because a new exhibition, \u201cSite-seeing\u201d, is being installed, so we meet instead at this dense, photogenic residential complex made famous by the 2014 film Transformers: Age of Extinction<\/em><\/span> \u2013 a fitting setting for a conversation about change.<\/div>\n
Unlike his immediate predecessor, Billy Tang<\/span>, who was a familiar face in the region before he moved to Hong Kong from Shanghai, Taylor-Foster has hardly any Asia experience and is not well known in the local art circle.<\/div>\n
\u201cI am what they call a wild card,\u201d he says straight away.<\/p>\n
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<\/div>James Taylor-Foster in front of Yick Cheong Building, aka the \u201cMonster Building\u201d, in Quarry Bay. Unlike his predecessor Billy Tang, Para Site\u2019s new executive director Taylor-Foster is not well known in the local art circle. Photo: Elson Li<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
From architecture to art<\/h3>\n
Ebullient and loquacious, Taylor-Foster fits the profile of previous Para Site directors. He is also around the same age as Tobias Berger<\/span>, Cosmin Costinas<\/span> and Tang when they were appointed \u2013 a lineage of young men of cosmopolitan outlook and international ambition.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
![\"James](\"https:\/\/img.i-scmp.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/fit=contain,width=1024,format=auto\/sites\/default\/files\/d8\/images\/canvas\/2026\/03\/13\/92c9724c-af6d-48eb-9828-728a19e1c09b_52f7aac4.jpg\" "\\"James")
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