Council members
FIHRM is being led by National Museums Liverpool and the aim is to establish a framework that is truly global in its outlook. For this purpose, the FIHRM Council has been set up, consisting of key international institutions which are leaders in the field of social justice and human rights.
David Fleming, Director and FIHRM President
National Museums Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
David became director of National Museums Liverpool in 2001. He is currently overseeing the creation of the new £72 million Museum of Liverpool. Since he became Director of National Museums Liverpool audiences have more than trebled, rising from around 700,000 per year to more than 2.7 million.
Previously, David was director of the multi-award-winning Tyne and Wear Museums for 11 years, where he led teams delivering major capital developments (including Newcastle Discovery Museum, Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens and Segedunum Roman Fort and Museum) and massive audience growth. Before that he was principal keeper at Hull Museums, where his major projects included a new Transport Museum and The Old Grammar School. He started his museum career as founder-curator of the Yorkshire Museum of Farming, York.
David is a past President of the UK Museums Association and has served on several Government committees and task forces. In 2002 he was named in the Independent on Sunday as one of the ten leading people in UK museums. He was awarded an OBE in the 1997 New Years Honours List for services to museums.
Lonnie G. Bunch, Founding Director
Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington D.C., USA
Lonnie G. Bunch III is founding director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). Historian, author, educator, curator and scholar, Bunch has spent 30 years in the museum field. Prior to his July 2005 appointment as director of NMAAHC, Bunch served as president of the Chicago Historical Society.
Tracy Puklowski , Associate Director, Museum of Living Cultures
Te Papa Tongarewa - Museum of New Zealand
Tracy has been working in the New Zealand cultural sector for over twenty years. This has included roles at Archives New Zealand and Waikato Museum of Art and History, and as Director of Te Awamutu Museum and Aratoi, Wairarapa Museum of Art and History.
Tracy worked at Te Papa between 2005 and 2011, where she held a range of positions including General Manager of National Services Te Paerangi, and Senior Operations Manager, Collections and Research. After a time at the Alexander Turnbull Library as Associate Chief Librarian, Research Collections, she returned to Te Papa in March 2013 to take up the position of Associate Director, Museum of Living Cultures.
Tracy believes that museums should be places of debate, challenge, and encounter, and where long-lasting and reciprocal relationships are formed. She is passionate about the role museums have to play in contemporary society by exploring social and environmental issues.
Richard Freedman, Director
South African Holocaust and Genocide Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa
Richard Freedman was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. He taught History and English in Cape Town high schools and was appointed principal of Herzlia Weizmann School in 1990, a position he held until 2005. He served as chairman of the Association of Principals of Jewish Day Schools of Southern Africa and also served on the executive committee of the Independent Schools Association of South Africa (Western Cape).
He was a founding board member of Mothers to Mothers (an NGO which serves to provide counselling, mentoring and support to pregnant mothers living with HIV), and serves on the board of Union International de la Marionette (SA). He has delivered papers and conducted seminars on Holocaust Education in South Africa in Germany,Israel and the UK and most recently in Namibia.
In 2006 he was appointed director of the Cape Town Holocaust Centre and in 2007 Director of The South African Holocaust Foundation.
Professor Ying-Ying Lai
Director, Graduate School of Arts Management & Cultural Policy, and Research Center of Museum Studies, National Taiwan University of Arts, Taiwan
Dr Lai Ying Ying is currently the Director, Graduate School of Arts Management & Cultural Policy, and Research Center of Museum Studies, National Taiwan University of Arts. She is the vice-chairwoman of the Chinese Museum Association. She was active as the Board member of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei and served over 20 years as a senior curator at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum.
She has written many papers and books on museum management, art management, exhibition catalogues, such as ”Building Cultural Hegemony: Reflecting on Exhibitions of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum”, (2012), “Museum Governance and Public-Private Partnership Practice”, (2011), “Culture Re-initiation: A Study of Museum’s Artist- in-Residency Programs from the Perspective of Cultural Values”, (2010), Exhibition Reflexivity and Discourse Practice: Exhibition Policy and Strategy of the TFAM’s Directors (1983-2007), (2011), Multimedia Art - Taiwan Modern Art Series, (2004), Taiwanese Avant-garde: Complex Art in the 1960s,(2003).
Stuart Murray, CEO
Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Winnipeg, Canada
Stuart Murray was appointed as the first Chief Operating Officer (CEO) of the new Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Canada’s fifth national museum and the first to be built outside the National Capital Region, in September 2009. Mr. Murray has served as President and CEO of the St. Boniface Hospital and Research Foundation since 2006.
He became Leader of the PC party of Manitoba in 2000 and resigned in 2006. Stuart also worked as President and CEO of DOMO Gasoline Corporation Ltd. from 1989 to 1999. His past positions include working with the Prime Minister of Canada from 1985-1989, Media Director and fundraiser for the Canadian Opera Company as well as Road Manager for the rock band Blood, Sweat & Tears.
Stuart has also been very active in the community. As volunteer Chairman of the 1999 World Junior Hockey Championships in Winnipeg, Stuart and his team organized what was the most successful tournament in its 20-year history. He was also Manitoba Co-Chair of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet (RWB) Sustaining Applause Campaign, raising in excess of 10 million dollars.
