The Geoffrey Bawa Trust Participates in ICAM22 held at M+ Hong Kong
As the first South Asian member of the International Confederation of Architectural Museums (ICAM), the Geoffrey Bawa Trust participated in the most recent edition of its biennial conference in December 2024. The Trust has been a member of ICAM since 2022. ICAM22 brought architectural institutions and experts together for a multi-day event that included panels, tours, lectures, and collaborative sessions. The conference took place in Asia for the first time through local host M+, a Hong Kong-based visual culture museum and fellow member of ICAM. M+ Museum Director Suhanya Raffel is also one of six Trustees at the Geoffrey Bawa Trust.
Founded in 1979, ICAM is “the international forum for professionals working in architecture museums, centres, libraries, and archives.” Chief Curator Shayari de Silva said of membership, “ICAM is an international platform for architecture museums of varied scales,. As one of the very few cultural institutions in Sri Lanka with contemporary architecture collections and exhibitions as a focus, we believe that it is important we participate in such global forums.”
Members connect throughout the year before convening biennially for the international conference, which focuses on critical issues facing museum and curatorial work. De Silva and Curator Aneesha Mustachi represented the Geoffrey Bawa Trust throughout ICAM22. “The biennial conference, in particular, is an important opportunity to reflect on how institutions around the world are working with their architectural collections and bringing this discipline into the public sphere. The opportunity to exchange methodologies and approaches amongst museum professionals and archivists is one we greatly appreciate,” said de Silva.
Session II of the conference, “Long Term Strategic Planning and Delivery – An Active Dialogue,” addressed museums’ adaptations to global change. De Silva and Mustachi joined Avianti Armand and Adelia Andani of Museum Arsitektur Indonesia for an economy-focused conversation moderated by the Associate Director of Collections at the Canadian Centre for Architecture and recently-appointed ICAM co-president Martien de Vletter. De Silva explained how the Trust runs “largely self-sufficiently” due to a “rather unorthodox approach of opening up Geoffrey’s home in Colombo and garden Lunuganga for the public to visit and stay—a measure that has allowed us to operate independently and with integrity and that has also helped in keeping these spaces alive and functional.”
Mustachi reflected on the resilience of the Geoffrey Bawa Trust throughout various challenges in Sri Lanka in recent years. “We also touched on how long-term planning may not always pan out as expected. For us, experiencing an economic crisis and import restriction in the middle of putting together an exhibition on the Archives meant we had to change tack and figure out how to rely on skills, materials and resources available to us within our borders and even within our small team.”
The Geoffrey Bawa Trust presented at the conference for the second time since joining ICAM in 2022, a mark of its increasing global reach through international programming such as the travelling exhibition Geoffrey Bawa: It is Essential to be There. “One thing I noticed and deeply appreciated at ICAM was the inclusion of institutions at every end of the spectrum: small teams like us at GBT, large-scale teams from older institutions, and everything in between. This helped me understand what growth and progress looks like at every stage, which was useful to discuss common problems we all face and how each institution navigates issues with the resources available to them,” said Mustachi.
On 6 December, the ICAM22 General Assembly announced de Silva as one of four new ICAM board members under the leadership of unanimously voted co-presidents de Vletter and Ikko Yokoyama of M+, who also organised the conference with Shirley Surya.
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