Kris Schiermeier will be stepping down as Managing Director of Japan Museum SieboldHuis

Posted on December 22, 2025

After fifteen rewarding years leading Japan Museum SieboldHuis, Managing Director Kris Schiermeier will step down on 31 December to take on new challenges. Under her leadership, the museum’s annual visitor numbers grew from around 23,000 to nearly 64,000. During this time, SieboldHuis received several prestigious honours, including the Japanese Foreign Minister’s Commendation Award (2015) and the Commendation Award from the city of Nagasaki (2023). In 2014, the museum was recognised by the Emperor of Japan as a symbol of cultural exchange between Japan and the Netherlands.

Expansion of the Museum Collection

Since 2018, under Kris Schiermeier’s leadership, SieboldHuis has been building its own collection of Japanese art. The foundation was laid with the donation of over 500 Japanese prints by Muck and Mieke Douma, marking the birth of the Japan Museum SieboldHuis Collection.

This was followed by several significant donations, including:

An exceptionally rare complete set of lithochromes, gifted by Baron Van Lynden (2020);
Fourteen Japanese prints and paintings, donated by Mr D. Eisma via the Rembrandt Association (2022);
280 carvings, mostly in ivory, donated by Mrs E.Y. de Koster and Mrs G. Zellentin (2025).

Fundraising, partnerships and exhibitions

Stakeholders have consistently praised Kris Schiermeier for her ability to secure substantial annual funding and sponsorship, achieve commercial successes, develop lasting partnerships, and deliver high-quality exhibitions with her team—always accompanied by catalogues, supporting programmes, and educational activities.

Under her leadership, the museum staged numerous memorable exhibitions, including historical showcases such as The Bomb: 75 Years After Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At the same time, it attracted wide audiences with family-friendly and themed exhibitions, including Hello Kitty Hello Holland (2010–2011), Fish: From Shark to Koi (2012), Japanese Comic Heroes (2014), The Masked Warrior: The Samurai Battlefield (2018), Japanese Nude (2019), and Neko: The Cat in Japanese Art (2020).

The museum’s annual print exhibitions, featuring renowned artists such as Hokusai, Kunisada, Yoshitoshi, and Utamaro, also drew large and diverse audiences.

In addition, Schiermeier provided a platform for both established and emerging contemporary artists, including Aya Takano, Kai Fusayoshi, Chris Berens, Charlotte Dumas, Casper Faassen, Leo van der Kleij, Mieke de Waal, the Miedema brothers, Debora Makkus, Anaïs López, as well as various artist collectives from Japan.

New permanent exhibition

One of Schiermeier’s final initiatives is the redesign of the museum’s permanent Siebold Collection, for which she invited renowned non-fiction author Annejet van der Zijl to serve as guest curator. The reinstallation, expected to open in December 2026, is inspired by Van der Zijl’s book The Floating World, a dual biography of Philipp Franz von Siebold — the museum’s namesake — and his Japanese daughter, Kusumoto Ine.

In February 2025, the museum received €200,000 from the Friends Lottery and €35,000 from the Dutch Cultural Fund to support the project, aimed at making the permanent exhibition more inclusive and accessible.