What’s the most interesting contemporary artwork you’ve encountered in the last few years that has challenged you?

Allison Saar’s 2018 contemporary assemblage Weight. We acquired it for PEM while we were preparing the Powerful Figures installation and I felt strongly about how contemporary expression by a Black American artist needed to be very much part of that experience for our visitors. I’ve admired her mother’s work, that’s Betye Saar. Then through Betye’s work, I got to know Allison’s work. She’s one of these consistently evocative and provocative artists, able to see things from different angles, related to a combination of a specific Black experience and where that connects to a more universal human experience. That’s one of the challenges and opportunities for PEM in order to demonstrate or share the gamut of very specific experiences to more universal experiences. PEM is particularly well positioned to be able to do that.

The other example is the work of Elias Sime, a contemporary Ethiopian multimedia artist. The Royal Ontario Museum, just as I was leaving my position there, presented an exhibition of his work. Over the years, Elias has gone through the Mercato, probably Africa’s largest open-air market, to collect motherboards, telephone wire, all sorts of detritus that have been discarded. He uses these contemporary technological materials to make massive wall reliefs. They are incredibly textured. He’s calling on traditions of weaving and braiding traditions of Ethiopia. It’s this notion of making something from nothing. It’s a comment on what we use and abuse in our culture. What can you create that is beautiful and thoughtful and expressive from something someone else didn’t need? Creativity is this incredible expression of imagination. It’s willing things into being that make you stop, experience and feel. Again, that’s something that PEM has been doing and really needs to continue to play out.

What is it about PEM that keeps you engaged professionally and personally?

Part of it goes back to the genetics of the place. It has been built and has grown because people have wanted to be aspirational, exploratory and experimental. It’s remarkably important that an organization that can say it’s as old as it is, is also as fresh as it is. This goes back to my belief in lifelong learning. Make the most of what you have while you’re here. There’s this organic character to PEM that has always intrigued me. The staff, the board and our supporters have not been afraid to experiment and take risks. It’s an extraordinary collection in its range. The museum has been a real magnet for an incredible staff. It’s that combination of people's skills and talents and the museum’s resources that are truly inspiring for me.

Each directorship at PEM over the last 222 years has been distinctive. What do you hope your legacy will be?

Quite frankly, as I was accepting the position, I didn’t spend much time thinking about how I’ll be the first woman director. But that will be part of my legacy. I think that it’s important for someone in my position to help an organization, to help staff, to help a board, to help a community understand why and how different forms of expression shape us as human beings. Because that’s how we collaborate, connect and have a sense of belonging.

Looking back over exhibitions you have worked on, which have been particularly influential to your career?

I would have to say my retrospective Joseph Cornell: Navigating the Imagination. It gave me the chance to encourage people to appreciate what happens when an artist dares to be different and is able to do something extraordinary because of his openness to all sorts of disciplines and ideas. He’s the ultimate cross-disciplinary artist because of everything he explored in the arts, humanities and sciences. To share that with people in a powerful visual and evocative way, is something I’m really proud of.