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Ceramics in Mainland Southeast Asia Webinar
Tuesday, June 23, 2009, at 8 pm EDT

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Join us in celebrating the launch of our new online catalogue, Ceramics in Mainland Southeast Asia, by participating in a unique, international gathering of experts and interested individuals. Learn about a widespread and interconnected network of ceramics production sites in Southeast Asia. Explore how the development of ceramics and the history of Southeast Asia are intertwined. Gain new insights into the diverse clays and surface treatments used in Southeast Asian ceramics, and expand your general knowledge of Southeast Asia.

Louise Cort, curator of ceramics, will discuss how the catalogue serves an international virtual community and will demonstrate its features, including many layers of scholarship. This webinar will be pertinent to anyone interested in Southeast Asia; ceramics; and the use of technology to deliver content, foster dialogue and create virtual communities. Guests are invited to participate by submitting their questions online.



About the Hauge Catalogue

Launched in December 2008, the online collections catalogue Ceramics in Mainland Southeast Asia: Collections in the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery provides specialists in ceramics, archaeology, anthropology, and other fields with easy access to the Hauge Collection of Southeast Asian Ceramics, which is unparalleled for its size and diversity. The innovative feature Field Notes allows scholars and others to post questions and comments, creating a worldwide community of scholarship on Southeast Asian ceramics.

Essays and individual entries for the online catalogue were written and compiled by Louise Cort, curator of ceramics at the Freer and Sackler Galleries, with the aid of George Ashley Williams IV, research assistant, and David P. Rehfuss, a research volunteer and president of the Washington Oriental Ceramic Group.



Facilitators

Louise Cort
As curator of ceramics for the Freer and Sackler Galleries, Louise Cort’s interests include historical and contemporary Japanese, Southeast Asian, and South Asian ceramics and crafts, Japanese baskets and textiles, and the Japanese tea ceremony. Among her numerous publications is Shigaraki: Potters’ Valley, published in 1979 and reprinted in 2000. She received (with Leedom Lefferts) grants from the Nishida Memorial Foundation for Research in Asian Ceramic History as well as from the Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Studies program for documentation of village-based production of earthenware and stoneware ceramics in Mainland Southeast Asia.

George Ashley Williams IV
Research assistant George Williams served as the secondary author of the Hauge online catalogue. His responsibilities included compiling a detailed history of Southeast Asian peoples and their geographical movements through time, in addition to a general bibliography on Southeast Asian ceramics, with nearly 1500 citations in eight languages. He also managed several technical aspects of the catalogue, including writing and editing text, formatting images and essays for the website, maintaining and updating related links, and gathering and preparing object information.

David P. Rehfuss
Curatorial volunteer David Rehfuss is a member of the Friends of Asian Art of the Freer and Sackler Galleries. He wrote the essay “Ceramic Sherds from Southeast Asia: The Freer Gallery Study Collection and Its Donors” for the online catalogue. President and co-founder of the Washington Oriental Ceramic Group, Rehfuss has extensive experience with Asian ceramics, and he frequently lectures on Southeast Asian and Chinese export ceramics. He served as curator of the exhibition A Millennium of Southeast Asian Trade and Traders: Antique Oriental Ceramics from Maryland, Virginia, and Washington Collections, which was shown at Towson University in April 2006.