Partnerships and Collaborations
Working with Scholars, Museums, and Cultural Institutions
The Asian Art Federation is open to meaningful collaboration with universities, museums, archives, and cultural institutions that share a commitment to the study and preservation of Asian art. We welcome opportunities for scholarly dialogue, joint programming, and interdisciplinary exchange.
University Departments
Museums and Curators
Independent Scholars
Overview
The Asian Art Federation believes that the most valuable scholarly work happens in connection — between institutions, between disciplines, and between the different kinds of knowledge that scholars, curators, and archivists each bring to a shared subject.
Its programs are designed to draw in expertise from universities, museums, archives, and independent research communities — and its most important outputs are the exchanges, relationships, and collaborative projects that sustained engagement makes possible.
Institutional partnership with AAF is not a formal membership or affiliation program. It is an invitation to ongoing dialogue: to participate in seminars, to contribute to documentation initiatives, to co-develop programs, and to engage with the Federation’s work as both a resource and a collaborator.
Institutional Engagements
Four Categories of Institutional Partner
AAF’s collaborative relationships span a range of institutional contexts. Each brings a different kind of knowledge, resource, and perspective to the work — and each is valued differently within the Federation’s programs.
University Departments
Art History | Asian Studies | Archaeology | Material Culture
University departments are among AAF’s most natural partners. The scholarly infrastructure of a university — its faculty expertise, its graduate student community, its research culture, and its library and special collections — aligns closely with AAF’s own priorities.
We seek collaborative relationships with departments whose faculty and students are working in areas relevant to the study of Asian artistic traditions, and whose institutional resources can complement AAF’s programs through co-organized seminars, visiting lectures, and joint research initiatives.
- Co-organized research seminars and workshops
- Faculty participation in AAF programs
- Graduate student engagement and development
- Access to library and special collections resources
Museum Curators and Research Staff
Asian Art | Decorative Arts | Prints and Drawings | Conservation
Curators bring a form of knowledge that no university department can fully replicate: sustained, object-level engagement with works of art over years and decades. Their familiarity with specific collections, their understanding of condition and material history, and their experience of handling and studying primary objects makes them indispensable participants in any serious scholarly program.
AAF actively seeks involvement from curators and research staff at museums with holdings relevant to its programs — not merely as presenters but as intellectual partners whose expertise shapes the direction of the Federation’s work.
- Object-based contributions to close viewing sessions
- Curatorial presentations at seminars and roundtables
- Access to unpublished research and collection records
- Collaboration on documentation and cataloguing initiatives
Archives and Special Collections
Institutional Archives | Photographic Collections | Manuscript Holdings
Archives and special collections hold the primary materials on which serious scholarship depends: unpublished correspondence, photographic archives, auction records, dealer files, provenance documentation, and the accumulated research notes of earlier scholars. These holdings are often under-studied and under-connected to the broader research community.
AAF seeks to work with archives that hold materials relevant to the study of Asian art — both to draw on their resources within its own programs and to support their mission of making primary materials accessible to researchers.
- Access to primary research materials for AAF program
- Collaborative cataloguing and documentation projects
- Research connections and scholarly referrals
- Participation in preservation and digitization initiatives
Independent Scholars and Researchers
Independent Art Historians | Specialists | Researchers in Private Practice
Some of the most significant scholarship on Asian art has been produced by researchers working outside formal institutional structures. Independent scholars bring depth of specialization, freedom from institutional constraints, and a long-term commitment to particular areas of study that makes them essential participants in serious scholarly exchange.
AAF does not privilege institutional affiliation over scholarly quality. Independent researchers whose work meets the standards of rigour the Federation applies to all its programs are welcome as equal partners in AAF’s seminars, publications, and collaborative initiatives.
- Full participation in research seminars and roundtables
- Opportunities to present and publish research
- Engagement in collaborative documentation projects
- Connection to broader scholarly networks
Areas of Collaboration
What We Can Work On Together
AAF’s collaborative relationships span a range of institutional contexts. Each brings a different kind of knowledge, resource, and perspective to the work — and each is valued differently within the Federation’s programs.
Research Seminars
Co-organizing or co-hosting focused scholarly seminars on defined topics in Asian art history and material culture — combining AAF’s program development capacity with an institution’s space, collections access, and scholarly networks.
Public Lectures
Joint presentation of public lectures and conversations that connect scholarly research to broader audiences — drawing on both institutions’ reputations and communities to extend reach and deepen engagement.
Documentation Projects
Collaborative work on archival documentation, provenance research, cataloguing, high-resolution imaging, and the study of inscriptions and seals — applying combined expertise and resources to preservation challenges that neither institution could address alone.
Publications
Joint development of research papers, seminar proceedings, essays, and scholarly reference materials emerging from collaborative programs — extending the reach and life of shared scholarly work.
Visiting Programs
Facilitation of scholarly visits, research residencies, and exchange programs that connect researchers at partner institutions with the Federation’s wider scholarly network and with opportunities for close study of relevant materials.
Interdisciplinary Dialogue
Programs that bring together scholars from different disciplines — art history, archaeology, conservation science, literary studies, religious studies — to address questions in Asian cultural heritage that no single discipline can fully resolve.
Our Approach
How AAF Thinks About Partnership
AAF approaches institutional engagement with a few clear principles that shape how it develops and maintains collaborative relationships.
Scholarly Substance First
Every partnership AAF pursues begins with a shared scholarly question — a topic, problem, or area of study that both institutions have genuine reason to address together. AAF does not pursue partnerships for visibility, prestige, or institutional scale. The question of whether a proposed collaboration will produce something intellectually valuable is always the first consideration.
Mutual Contribution
The most productive partnerships are those in which both institutions contribute substantively — not arrangements in which one provides resources while the other provides programming. AAF seeks collaborators who bring their own knowledge, collections, networks, and perspectives to the work, and who expect the same from the Federation in return.
Long-Term Relationship Over Single Events
A single co-organized seminar has value. A sustained working relationship between two institutions — in which scholars, curators, and researchers come to know each other’s work over years — has far more. AAF prioritizes the development of genuine, ongoing institutional relationships over one-off collaborations, and invests in maintaining those relationships even between formal programs.
Transparency About Capacity
AAF is a young and growing institution. It is direct with potential partners about what it can and cannot currently offer, about where it is still developing its programs, and about the timelines within which collaborative work can realistically happen. Partners can expect honesty rather than overstatement about the Federation’s current scale and capacity.
Starting the Conversation
Interested in partnering with us? Conntect with us. Useful things to include: your institutional affiliation and role, the scholarly area you work in, the kind of collaboration you are interested in exploring, and any specific programs or topics you have in mind. We will respond to all genuine enquiries and, where there is a clear area of shared interest, propose a time to speak.
For institutional enquiries or to discuss potential collaboration, please contact us directly.