The international conference "Ceramics from Islamic Lands" (initially planned 3-5 December 2020) is organised at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, by Mariam Rosser-Owen (V&A) and Leslee Michelsen (Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art).

The V&A proposes to hold a conference on the theme of ceramics from Islamic lands.
Proposals are invited for 20-minute papers on any theme, including but not limited to:
significant bodies of archaeological material, ceramic imports into the Islamic world, trade
with China, Europe and the Americas, ceramics produced in South and South-East Asia
under Muslim rule, object-focused and art historical studies, studies in conservation or
restoration, scientific analysis, technology and technique, architecture, epigraphy,
historicism and revival (in particular within the region), the formation of private and public
collections from the 19th century to today, continuity and change under colonialism,
modernism, contemporary artistic practice, and contemporary craft traditions.

Please send abstracts of 250 words to ceramicsfromislamiclands@gmail.com by 31st
December 2020. We aim to contact those selected to participate by the end of June. We
plan to cover speakers’ travel and accommodation costs for the duration of the conference.
We also hope to provide fellowships to support the travel of a limited number of colleagues
and students from under-represented institutions and countries who wish to attend the
conference. Further information on these will be announced later in the year.

This conference is being organised to coincide with two exhibitions taking place at the V&A
this autumn: Epic Iran (17 October 2020-3 May 2021) and Contemporary Ceramics from the
Middle East (8 June 2020-31 January 2021). The backdrop to the conference will be one of
the greatest collections of ceramics in the world. The V&A’s holdings include examples of
the earliest type of glazed wares made in the Middle East as well as pieces from the 19th
century, and they range across all the geographies encompassed within the discipline of
‘Islamic art’, with particularly large and significant groups of ceramics from medieval and
Safavid Iran and the Ottoman world. The Museum also holds important European material
inspired by Islamic designs. Today its curators are actively bringing these collections into the
20th and 21st centuries.

For further information, please contact the organisers on the above email address.

(from the Call for Papers)