Elizabeth Perrill
Education
2008 Ph.D. Indiana University
2004 M.A. Indiana University
1999 B.A. cum laude, Grinnell College
Biography
Dr. Perrill’s research focuses on ceramic production and contemporary art in Southern Africa, and has grown to encompass writings on the economics, infrastructures, and institutions that continued to define and categorize art production. She engages with theories of gender, race, materiality, pedagogy, and craft within her many scholarly articles.
Perrill’s second book, Burnished: Zulu Ceramics between Urban and Rural South Africa (2022), analyzes the aesthetic and economic transformations impacting Zulu ceramics during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This publication won a 2020 Millard Meiss Publication Award from the College Art Association. Her first book, Zulu Pottery (2012), was released as part of a South African educational series and has been used to support indigenous knowledge curricula within the South Africa secondary school system.
Dr. Perrill also maintains a curatorial practice dedicated to foregrounding Indigenous Knowledge Systems. Her curatorial philosophy prioritizes the integration of ongoing community relationships and pedagogical outreach as integral components of socially responsible curatorial practice.
From 2023 to 2025, as a Guest Curator with the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Perrill worked with a team of curators, film makers, Indigenous Knowledge Experts, and artists to bring together the first major exhibition of telephone wire basketry in North America. In 2018, as co-leader of the Curatorial and Educational teams at the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA), Perrill and her team won an Association of American Museums (AAM) Excellence in Exhibitions Award for the re-installation of the NCMA’s Permanent reinstation of African art and accompanying Threads of Experience experiential space. Dr. Perrill has also curated various regional and local exhibitions related to her research.
Subjects Taught
- African Art History
- Histories of Ceramics
- Art of the Trans-Atlantic World
- Global Modernisms
- Global Histories of Art Markets and Infrastructures
Scholarly creative/Research Activity
Monographic Publications
2022
Burnished: Zulu Ceramics Between Rural and Urban South Africa. Indiana University Press, African Expressive Cultures Series. June 2022. ISBN: 9780253061874.
2012
Zulu Pottery. Cape Town, South Africa: Print Matters, 2012.
2008
Zulu Pottery. Cape Town, South Africa: Print Matters, 2012.
Selected Articles
2025
“The Demonstration, ‘Ceramic Pedagogies, Intercultural Bodily Mechanics, and the Politics of Demonstrations,” Ch. 3 in Educational Media: Toward a Global History of Art and Design Pedagogies in Nine Forms. Bloomsbury Academic.
2023
“The Scale of Tomorrow: Imiso Ceramics in Context,” Ceramics Monthly, (February) 2023: 38-41.
2021
“Editing Wikipedia, Discovering Inquiry: Collaboration in a Modern and Contemporary African Art History Course,” co-authored with Maggie Murphy, and UNCG Students: Christina Kelly, Alexandra Gaal, and Maya Simmons. Art Documentation. https://doi.org/10.1086/714390
2020
“Introduction” & “The Arch Meets the Line – Geometries of Innovation and Conveyance,” Des Artes, special issue on Modern and Contemporary South African Ceramics, with Guest Editors, Dr. Elizabeth Perrill and Dr. Wendy Gers. 55, 2, (2020): 23-45. https://doi.org/10.1080/00043389.2020.1818512
Selected Curatorial Projects
2023-2025
Guest Curator, “iNgqikithi yokuPhica / Weaving Meanings: Telephone Wire Basketry from South Africa, International Folk Art Museum, Santa Fe, NM. November 17, 2024 opening.
2021-2022
Fire and Beer: Global Histories of Women, Entrepreneurship and Art. Exhibition focusing on women, brewing, and ceramics between KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa and North Carolina, USA. Greensboro Project Space, NC. PreHEAT event for the NC Woodfire Conference
2012-2018
Consulting Curator of African Art. North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA). Permanent Re-Installation Launch, June 30, 2017.
Selected Grants, Fellowships, and Awards
2023-2025
Modern Endangered Archive Project (MEAP), Planning Grant for Frank Jolles Archives of Art and Indigenous Knowledge – Durban, South Africa. UCLA Libraries $15,000. https://meap.library.ucla.edu/about/news/meap-awards-cohortfive/
2022-2023
Principal Investigator. UNCG Humanities Network and Consortium “Humanities Work and Worth: Place Making and Holding Space,” Social Science Research Council and National Endowment for the Humanities (SSRC/NEH) grant. $100,000 support for UNCG humanities faculty working groups and infrastructure stabilization. https://www.ssrc.org/grantees/humanities-work-and-worth-place-making-and-holding-space/
2020-2021
Millard Meiss Publication Support Grant, College Art Association. Application submitted by Indiana University Press for the benefit of the publication manuscript Burnished: Zulu Ceramics Between Rural and Urban South Africa. https://www.collegeart.org/programs/publishing-grants/meiss/background-winners
2018-2019
American Alliance of Museums, Excellence in Exhibition Award, 2018 – for NCMA African Art Gallery/Threads of Experience.
2013-2014
Craft Research Fund Project Grant. “Burnished by History: The Legacies of Maria Martinez and Nesta Nala in Dialogue.” The Center for Craft, Creativity and Design. Asheville, NC. https://www.centerforcraft.org/recipient/2013-craft-research-fund-project-grant-elizabeth-perrill