Please save the date for The Bunting Biennial Ceramics Symposium, Clay Embodied: Ceramics and the Human Form, scheduled for February 22-23, 2013 at the Birmingham Museum of Art.

The Symposium will be held in conjunction with the 28th Annual Alabama Clay Conference.

Confirmed speakers include:

• Magdalene Odundo, Kenyan ceramic artist
• Garth Clark, internationally recognized scholar, author, and collector of modern and contemporary ceramic art
• Jeannine O'Grody, Deputy Director and Chief Curator at the Birmingham Museum of Art

Please check back for a full schedule and registration information.

Clay Embodied: Ceramics and the Human Form

A Call for Papers for The Bunting Biennial Ceramics Symposium at the Birmingham Museum of Art • February 22-23, 2013

The Birmingham Museum of Art, a comprehensive regional museum, has emerged as a major Southeastern center for ceramic study. Currently, the collection includes more than 16,000 objects of ceramic art from Africa, the Americas, Europe, and Asia, dating from the Jomon period of Neolithic Japan to the present day. The collection reflects the centrality of ceramics to cultures worldwide. It is central to the mission of the Museum to provide the public with a sense of the value and relevance of the artworks it houses.

The primary purpose of hosting a ceramics symposium is to educate the public about the importance and relevance of ceramics both historically and today. By exploring universal themes that touch on core aspects of the human experience, the Museum hopes to engage current and future museum visitors by connecting ceramic art to people and their lives.

Ceramics of all periods and cultures share a relationship with the human body. Whether utilitarian, ritualistic, decorative, or artistic in function, all ceramics interface with the human body in their design, manufacture, decoration, or use. Indeed, the very nomenclature used to describe a ceramic pot – the lip, mouth, neck, shoulder, belly, and foot – is derived from the human form. The symposium will explore the relationship between ceramics and the human body by considering the subject in a broad array of historical and geographical contexts.

The Museum welcomes a variety of papers that address the relationship between ceramics and the human form. The subject is intended to be interpreted broadly. Papers representing new research are particularly welcome and authors are invited to submit proposals based on, but not limited to, the following themes:

• Contextual foundation for the relationship between ceramics and the human form

• Materials and processes

• Formal and conceptual language

• The role of curatorial practice in making relationships between ceramics and the human form manifest

• Case studies of individual artists, movements, etc.

• The iconography of the artist or cultural group

Proposals for papers (300 words) accompanied by short biographies of the authors (150 words) should be submitted by April 1, 2012 in ‘Word’ format.

A schedule for submission and presentation of papers is available for potential presenters and all inquiries should be made to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .