Ceramics on Show: Public and Private Displays Conference

Two-day conference (Friday and Saturday) celebrating the new Ceramics Galleries at the V&A, and exploring the ways in which ceramic objects have been put on show. Our appreciation of ceramic objects is shaped by the ways in which they are grouped and displayed. This conference will explore both contemporary and historical practice, focusing on ceramics in museums, in retail and domestic environments, in architectural settings and in the display of contemporary ceramic art. Keynote speakers will include artist and writer Edmund de Waal and Reino Liefkes, lead curator of the new galleries

Programme of events

Day One: Friday 24 September 2010

10.00 Registration and Refreshments
10.30 Learning and Interpretation, Matilda Pye (V&A): Welcome
Introduction to the mornings papers, Alun Graves, (V&A)

Ceramics and Museums


10.35 Reino Liefkes (V&A): The New V&A Ceramics Galleries
11.05 Stephen Dixon (Independent maker / Manchester Metropolitan University) The Artist as Exhibit
11.15 Juliette Fritsch (V&A), Designing visitor-focussed learning into Ceramics exhibitions
11.35 Jessica Harrison Hall (British Museum),
The Sir Percival David and British Museums Collections of Chinese Ceramics: Historic Displays and Contemporary Approaches
12.00 Sarah Fayen Scarlett (formerly Chopstone Foundation) and Martha Glowacki (independent artist),
Artist and curator, Ceramics and Science, Cabinet and Museum: An Unconventional Installation by the Chipstone Foundation
12.25 Discussion and Questions Chair, Alun Graves (V&A)
12.30 Lunch (not provided)

Ceramics on display

14.00 Sonia Solicari (V&A), From the Wheel to the Till: Ceramic Display and Consumerism 1870-1914
14.25 Jennifer Lee, (Independent artist), ‘U-Tsu-Wa’: an Exhibition Designed by Tadao Ando and Directed by Issey Miyake
14.35 Chris Jordon, (independent curator and historian), Enticement: Invitation and Display in the collection of Ernest Marsh
15.00 Refreshments
15.30 Julian Stair, (Independent artist), Volumes within Voids: A Case Study of a Site-Specific Project
15.45 Anne Anderson (Exeter University) and Scott Anderson (Southampton Solent University), Ceramics as Wallpaper in the House Beautiful c.1860-1900
16.10 Edmund de Waal (University of Westminster / independent artist), 'I Placed a Jar': Ceramics in the Expanded Field
16.35 Discussion and Questions Chair Matilda Pye, (V&A)
16.55 Close

Day Two: Saturday 25 September 2010

10.00 Registration

Session One: Ceramics and Architecture

10.15 Welcome back and Introduction Reino Liefkes, (V&A)
10.20 Maureen Cassidy-Geiger (independent scholar), Fact vs. Fiction: Pictorial
Evidence for Historical Displays of Ceramics
10.45 Teresa Canepa, (Jorge Welsh / Leiden University)
Ming Porcelain in 17th Century Portuguese Architecture: Santos Palace and Palace of the Marquesses of Fronteira
11.10 Refreshments
11.30 Matthew Partington (University of the West of England / V&A), Site-specific Ceramics in 1950s London Coffee Bars
11.55 Andrew Ippoliti, (J William Fulbright Scholar/ Xi'an Jiao Tong University), Objects & Spaces: Relationships in China
12.20 Jeremy Theophilus and Barney Hare Duke, (A Fine Line / BCB), The British Ceramics Biennial: Ceramics on Show in the City
1235 Discussion and Questions Chair Reino Liefkes, (V&A)
12.55 Lunch (not provided)

Session Two: Displaying the Contemporary

14.15 Alun Graves (V&A), Positions and Strategies: Placing Contemporary Practice
14.40 Tessa Peters and Janice West, (independent curators), Ceramic Narratives: Artefacts and Interpretation
15.05 James Beighton and Alix Collingwood (MIMA, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art),
‘Violent Spurts of Creation and Action’: The Challenge of Ceramics to the Fine Art Museum
15.30 Refreshments
16.00 Artists presentations chaired by Glen Adamson (V&A): Keith Harrison (Bath Spa University),
Aimee Lax, Anders Ruhwald, (Cranbrook Academy of Art) Francis Priest
16.50 Discussion & Questions
17.15 Close