THE IAC NEW MEMBERS’ EXHIBITION 2020: OPENING SPEECH BY TORBJØRN KVASBØ, PRESIDENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY OF CERAMICS.

On behalf of the International Academy of Ceramics I would like to thank the Guozhong Ceramic Art Museum in Beijing for their warm and hospitable welcome. A special thank you to our new members, and especially to those who are participating in this exhibition.

The IAC received outstanding applications for its 2019 New Member Elections, and I would like to thank the candidates for the development of this global network of enthusiastic professionals. We are pleased to welcome 224 new members to the IAC.

The Council was meticulously involved in their selection and we were all impressed by the high quality of the applicants. Our new members represent diverse expressions and content, and work that is innovative, experimental and critically important.

Here there is much to see, learn from and reflect on. Without your generous contributions this could not have happened.

You are acknowledged by your peers for the excellence of your work.

Each and every one of you is operating at the highest level in the field of international ceramics.

You are interested in the culture of the other, and in exchange.

You have come to a global organisation and network where ego and competition are superseded by contribution and cooperation.

In the IAC you will get to know colleagues from all over the world, colleagues who support you, fully understand and accept you. We share a lot in common, all over the world, in our daily lives through our ceramic work and interests: we talk to each other, face to face, and tell each other true stories from lived lives.

This can only be achieved with your participation.

Due to a request, a proposal, and a very generous offer from the Guozhong Ceramic Art Museum to arrange an IAC New Members’ Exhibition, the exhibition was first planned as an on-site exhibition at the Guozhong Ceramic Art Museum in Beijing, China, and would thereafter be shipped to the Korundi Museum for an on-site exhibition during the IAC General Assembly and Congress 2020 in Rovaniemi/Posio, Finland. As we all know, this could not take place.

However, this is the first ever edition of the New Members’ Exhibition to be held both on-site and online. It is impressive that the Beijing Guozhong Ceramic Art Museum has been able to achieve this, taking into account the difficult circumstances.

As President of the International Academy of Ceramics, and on the IAC’s behalf, I am very pleased that the Beijing Guozhong Ceramic Art Museum is arranging the IAC New Members’ Exhibition and has made available its human and financial resources to accomplish this.

The online performances, the Opening Ceremony and the on-site and online New Members’ Exhibition are all new milestones.  

It is the IAC’s intention to build on the experiences from this event to find online solutions for future communications.

The 2020 IAC New Members’ Exhibition is organized and hosted by the Beijing Guozhong Ceramic Art Museum and sponsored by the International Academy of Ceramics.

I congratulate the organizers of this exhibition – the Beijing Guozhong Ceramic Art Museum, the Beijing Guozhong Ceramic Research Institute and the Ceramic Culture Development Fund of the China International Cultural Exchange Foundation – as well as the support of the China International Cultural Exchange Centre, the China Ceramic Industry Association, the China Arts and Crafts Society and Jingdezhen Ceramic University, and finally all the participating artists.

I hereby declare the 2020 IAC New Members’ Exhibition at the Beijing Guozhong Ceramic Art Museum open.

Thank you!