JIAJIA FEI

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. It took place in April 2023.

GM: You describe yourself as a digital strategist – what was your path to this career?

JF: I always knew I wanted to be in the art world, but it took working my way through its institutions to realize that I needed to carve out a place of my own within it In school, I studied art history, but never aspired to be a curator or art historian like any of my peers. I was also interested in technology, but never imagined it would be such a critical part of my career. Just for fun, I taught myself how to code and build websites – little did I know that these skills would prove even more useful than my art history degree. Eventually, I ended up in a museum job where I found a way to combine both these skills, and stayed for over a decade before I ended up as one of those people who would be there for decades. As someone at the rare intersection of art and technology, I saw an opportunity to position myself as a translator for art and tech, and so I created a business out of it.

GM: You were previously the Associate Director of Digital Marketing at The Guggenheim Museum and the Director of Digital at The Jewish Museum, often being referred to as a “problem solver for museums”. What was your experience in these roles, and why did you decide to stop working for museums?

JF: In a way, I never stopped working for museums because I now have the privilege of working with incredible museums around the world as a consultant. Museums are unique and complicated organizations, and it takes working inside of them – from the bottom up – to fully grasp both the challenges and opportunities. As a lifelong learner, I learned so much from these first experiences, but knew it was time to move on when I kept solving the same problems over and over again. It was time to find new problems to solve.

Courtesy of Michael Avedon

Christine Wong Yap, Hopes for Chinatown (YY)

GM: In 2020, you founded the first digital agency for art. Why did you decide to become your own boss, and what do you hope to accomplish with this venture?

JF: My consulting business was a long time in the making; I still consider The Guggenheim and The Jewish Museum to be my first clients, in a way. They were case studies for digital transformation that I knew many other museums, galleries, and even artists were actively seeking – and no one else was doing it. I recognized a seismic gap in the art world, especially compared to other creative industries, when it came to digital strategy and integrating technology as both infrastructure and a communication tool. My goal was to take all the knowledge I had gained in this space and bring in other talented creative technologists along the way in order to help arts institutions further their mission and ultimately help make art more widely accessible to more people through technology.

GM: What could art institutions do to better engage with AAPI art and artists, especially in terms of exhibition organizing and programming thematics?

JF: I am against tokenism and never think it’s a good idea to include artists or work in a show just because they check a box. Instead, I think institutions should think more holistically and long-term about the inclusion of all identities and perspectives, starting with the roles that have the most potential to influence what the public sees. By hiring a diverse and representative staff who have inclusive points of view, this type of change is generative and more meaningful. Within museums, a change in guard, especially at the highest level, is often quite rare, as many museum directors and curators tend to stay in their jobs for a very long time, sometimes for decades or for life. My colleagues and I often joke that to get one of these coveted museum jobs, you basically have to wait for someone to die. My suggestion? Term limits.