All posts tagged: China mosaics

Where Porcelain comes from

As part of my residency to explore the interfaces between mosaic and porcelain craft I went on an excursion to Jingdezhen, the birthplace of porcelain. We took the train to ride slow into history. Porcelain production started first time in the world in the area around Jingdezhen in the 11 century. Here the craftsmen first experimented with the special earths found in the area that are needed to fire pure white and often delicately thin vessels. It soon became the highly sought and expensively traded “white gold”. Jingdezhen is a small city in the middle of China. Everyone who has a window to the street sells porcelain or pottery. Even the street lamps are exhibiting porcelain. Unfortunately the historic area with the ancient kilns dating back to the 11 century was under reconstruction. See below. But the large porcelain museum at the city fringe shows a detailed history of porcelain craft on 4 floors.  It was nice to see the craft very much alive and we could lay hands on the pottery wheel feeling the …

Mosaic for Awareness Raising on Climate Change Beijing

Between November 21 and April 22 a Climate Change Community Mosaic was created in Beijing. It was  a wonderful project that kept us busy and active for this good course – awareness raising about climate change. The whole project started with a tweet by the GLOBAL ASSEMBLY that wants to involve people’s direct voices in the COP discussions – compared to representatives voices as it is until now- and inspire and enable ordinary citizens to discuss climate change policies amongst themselves. One medium of this discussion shall be art. Together with 3 other women we organized our own “Global Assembly” of the international community of Beijing and out of the discussion on that day December 8, 2021 the Climate Change Community Mosaic was created. It was absolutely overwhelming to have soo many people interested to participate to make the mosaic with their own hands, to search for an appropriate location and to give general support in translating between Chinese and English, writing content, creating publications, installing and hosting the inauguration. It’s almost impossible to describe the …

Inauguration of Climate Change Community Mosaic 21. April 2022

We are in awe that we did it: a group of 55 people all dedicating time and energy to create with their hands a piece of awareness raising on their hopes and concerns about impact of climate change around us. Celebrate with us the transformation of words via symbols into mosaic art that is installed as a mural at the entrance of the German School in Beijing.  We are still gathering photos and reflecting on how it became such a big and wonderful project. Stay tuned to hear more about it in the coming weeks!