After a yearlong international search, Centre A has a new executive director to take over from Hank Bull.

The gallery of contemporary Asian art has announced Haema Sivanesan, a specialist in South and Southeast Asian art, will take over the helm.

She comes to the city from her most recent posting as executive director of the South Asian Visual Arts Centre in Toronto.

She has also curated exhibitions that include Melbourne's Commonwealth Games Cultural Festival in 2006 and a "zone" at Toronto's Nuit Blanche in 2008. In 2010 she curated the Images Prize-winning project "a heart that has no love/pain/generosity is not a heart" by Jayce Salloum and Khadim Ali, which is currently touring in Canada.

Bull helped found the gallery in 1999 and resigned a year ago due to personal and professional reasons, including the fact that he wanted to return to his art practice. He also stated that it was time for Centre A to have some renewal.