SOAS Inaugural Lecture Series: Professor Stacey Pierson (School of Arts)

In our Summer inaugural lecture, we welcome Professor Stacey Pierson, whose lecture will investigate ways in which fragments of Chinese porcelain, whether formed by accident or intent, have been reused in global design and artistic contexts from the fifteenth century to the present day. With examples ranging from the garden rooms of Lisbon, to new vessels produced in the Ottoman court workshops and the ‘weaving’ of a porcelain polo shirt by a contemporary Chinese artist, this lecture will reveal the surprisingly long and global history of the reuse, refashioning and upcycling of broken Chinese porcelain. Professor Stacey Pierson was made Professor of the History of Chinese Ceramics in 2022. She first joined SOAS as Assistant Curator of the Percival David Foundation in 1995, becoming Curator in 1998. While working at the museum she was awarded a doctorate by the University of Sussex with a dissertation on the history of Chinese art in the museum and academia, supervised by Craig Clunas. She joined the Art and Archaeology Department in 2007 and has continued to curate exhibitions and publish widely on aspects of Chinese ceramics and histories of collecting.