Chanel Signs Three-Year Lead Partnership with Hong Kong's M+ Museum

Chanel has signed on as lead partner of Hong Kong's M+ museum for the next three years, expanding its support beyond film into exhibitions, artist programs, and other projects.

The French luxury house announced the deal on Wednesday. It broadens a relationship that began in 2023, when Chanel first backed M+, the contemporary visual culture museum in Hong Kong's West Kowloon Cultural District. Until now, the partnership has concentrated on experimental cinema, film restoration, and building the museum's moving-image collection.

At the center of the new agreement sits an initiative called "Pioneering Visions." The program will spotlight artists whose work has shaped contemporary art and visual culture, with a particular focus on Hong Kong, mainland China, and the wider Asian region.

What opens first?

The inaugural exhibition under the program will be Sarah Sze: Centrifuge, a solo presentation opening at the museum's M+ Focus Gallery in February 2027. The initiative also includes artist talks, screenings, workshops, and an online platform featuring works from the museum's collection.

Financial terms of the expanded partnership were not disclosed.

For Chanel, the agreement marks another step in its deepening involvement with major cultural institutions through the Chanel Culture Fund. That fund also supports programs at the British Film Institute, Berlin's Hamburger Bahnhof, and the Venice Biennale.

Yana Peel, Chanel's president of arts, culture, and heritage, described M+ as one of the company's earliest institutional arts partners in Asia. She credited the museum with helping establish Hong Kong as an international cultural center.

"Now, after successful programmes focused on moving image, we are [broadening] our scope," Peel said in a statement. She added: "M+ is so much more than a museum: it is the epicenter for dialogue within Asia and between Asia and the world."

What has the partnership delivered so far?

The record since 2023 is concrete:

• Chanel has supported the restoration of nine Hong Kong feature films, screened at more than 130 venues and festivals worldwide.
• M+ has acquired 60 experimental moving-image works, roughly half of them from Hong Kong.
• Chanel has funded a senior curatorial position dedicated to moving image.
• The museum's Asian Avant-Garde Film Festival has drawn more than 10,300 participants across three editions since 2024.

Those efforts will continue under the new agreement. All nine restored films are scheduled to screen at M+ in November. Another six films from across Asia are due for release through the restoration program in 2027.

What does this change for the museum?

M+ director Suhanya Raffel said the expanded partnership allows the museum to move beyond its initial emphasis on cinema and explore connections between different artistic disciplines. The shift arrives at a milestone moment: M+, which opened in 2021, approaches its fifth anniversary. Designed by Herzog & de Meuron, the waterfront museum houses more than 9,000 works spanning contemporary art, design, architecture, and moving image, including the M+ Sigg Collection of Chinese contemporary art. With Chanel's backing secured through the next three years, the question is whether "Pioneering Visions" can position M+ as the hub for pan-Asian artistic dialogue that both partners envision.