13 November, 2026
12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
Aditya Birla Auditorium | On-site
Across West Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, new museums, foundations, and cultural infrastructure are emerging at a pace few could have predicted a decade ago. This panel asks whether an art institution is truly scalable, and what scale can mean: physical expansion, programmatic reach, digital presence, or influence, for public and private institutions alike.
Three practitioners bring distinct vantage points. Lydia Yee, Artistic Director of Muara Arts, a new public gallery opening in Kuala Lumpur in November 2026, draws on three decades of curatorial work at the Whitechapel Gallery, Barbican Art Gallery, and The Bronx Museum of the Arts. Manuel Rabaté, CEO and Director of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, which is expanding towards a campus of nearly one million square feet, brings his experience as former Director of Louvre Abu Dhabi. Zeina Arida, Director of Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha will speak about taking over leadership of a museum in a post pandemic world, reopening a museum after a 10 year closure and running one of the Arab world’s most important photographic archives.
Moderated by Deepanjana Klein,Special Advisor to the Chairperson and Director of Acquisitions and Development, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, the conversation will weigh the pros and cons of scaling, the challenges of opening a museum, and how an institution knows when it is truly ready to open its doors.
The ART MUMBAI Speaker Series is presented by the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art
Image courtesy Muara Arts
Lydia Yee is Artistic Director of Muara Arts, a new public gallery focusing on contemporary and modern art in Southeast Asia, which opens in Kuala Lumpur in November 2026. Spanning three decades, her curatorial work – in roles including Chief Curator, Whitechapel Gallery; Curator, Barbican Art Gallery and Senior Curator, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York – is marked by a long engagement with artists who have roots in Asia. A recipient of the Asian Cultural Council Individual Fellowship (2024–25) and a member of the Turner Prize jury (2024), Yee is also a senior curatorial advisor to YDP and a member of the external faculty for New Curators.
Zeina Arida is a cultural leader with extensive experience in modern and contemporary art, photography, archives, and artistic production. She has been Director of Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha since 2021. Previously, she led Beirut’s Sursock Museum, overseeing its reopening following a ten-year closure and reinforcing its cultural profile locally and internationally. From 1997 to 2014, she directed the Arab Image Foundation and contributed to building what became the most important photographic make in the Arab world . She currently contributes to several international cultural institutions, serving on the Art Mill Museum Scientific Committee, Arab Image Foundation, and ICOM Qatar board, she is also CIMAM’s general secretary .
Manuel Rabaté is Chief Executive Officer and Director of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), New Delhi. He brings more than 25 years of leadership in the global museum sector. Rabaté most recently served as Director of Louvre Abu Dhabi, a position he has held since 2016. Under his leadership, following the museum's opening in 2017, Louvre Abu Dhabi, recognized as the Arab world's first universal museum, grew into a globally influential cultural landmark, known for its ambitious international exhibition programme, expanding permanent collection, and strong focus on education and capacity-building, welcoming more than six million visitors to date. Rabaté has been associated with Louvre Abu Dhabi since its inception, joining Agence France-Muséums shortly after the intergovernmental agreement between France and Abu Dhabi that established the museum. At Agence France-Muséums, he served successively as Chief Financial Officer, Secretary General, and Chief Executive Officer (2008–2016), before joining the Department of Culture and Tourism, Abu Dhabi to support the museum's institutional launch. Earlier in his career, Rabaté was Deputy Director of Cultural Development at the Musée du quai Branly, Jacques Chirac, and taught arts and cultural management at Paris-Dauphine University and Paris-Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi.
Dr. Deepanjana Klein (DK), after nearly 15 years with Christie's as the International Head of Modern and Contemporary and Classical Indian and Southeast Asian Art, joined the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art as the Director of Acquisitions and Development in 2022. Deepanjana has a PhD in Indian Art History from De Montfort University in England and has taught art history, theory, and aesthetics at the Leicester School of Architecture in England and at the Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture and Environmental Studies in Mumbai. Her publications include contributions to the Encyclopaedia of Sculpture (Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2004), and she regularly writes for various journals on the topic of contemporary Indian art. She is the recipient of several awards, including a grant from the Mellon Foundation (ArtStor) for her photographic documentation of the Ellora cave temples, and has recently published her book on the Ellora caves.
