Research Achievement-Beijing Guozhong Ceramic Research Institute (GIC)

Theme: New Trend of International Ceramic Art Development

Theme: New Trend of International Ceramic Art Development

Date: November 7, 2020

Venue: Beijing Guozhong Ceramic Art Gallery

Host: Lv Pinchang

Lv Pinchang: Friends, online experts, Ceramic colleagues! Good afternoon! It is a great pleasure to co-hosted with Jacques Kaufmann. I am Lv Pinchang, an old member of IAC for more than 30 years. I graduated from Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute and taught in China Central Academy of Fine Arts for 25 years. Now as the President of Jingdezhen Ceramic University since last month, I’m just now one month old.

As we all know, a global epidemic is still not under control, we today holding such a activity is not easy. This exhibition activities in the online way, including the opening ceremony and academic seminar, is not easy, so here we would also like to thank International Academy of Ceramics(ICA) and Beijing Guozhong Ceramic Research Institute(GIC), and the efforts you all have made for various activities.

In fact, the online academic seminar is not a restrained bad thing. Due to this epidemic, our online communication mode has been strengthened. In the future, we will be able to carry out international communication with more means, which will make academic activities more convenient.

As we all know, just like the current epidemic, our global ceramic art has also gone through a very important transition, and will also encounter many different problems. However we think this is not only a challenge but also an opportunity for us. Because of the coming of the information age, we can share the artistic resources of different cultures in a timely manner, which is a benefit from my point of view. However, this is also a challenge for our ceramic art education and creation to meet. Moreover we especially need collaborative innovation to build a future-oriented new international cooperation relationship among ceramists, to meet our cutting-edge academic of future and the new trend of art development.

There are six theme-speaks this afternoon, and we're going to move on to the speakers. We now also welcome Jacques Kaufman to make seminar opening speech.
Jacques Kaufman: I will not speak much. We're here to listen to the theme speakers. I just want to remind you that, Mr.Lv Pinchang will be taking questions in Chinese and I will be taking questions in English.

Lv Pinchang: Let's welcome the first theme speaker, President of ICA, Tobien Kowalbo.

Tobian Kowalbo: Hello, everyone! It is a great honor to attend my first online IAC international seminar. Our theme today mentions the new trend, the complex of air, soil, water and fire. These elements together constitute our ceramic art.

What will be the new sparks in 2020? The goal of IAC is to promote professional friendship and exchanges, both in areas of artistic and academic. International cooperation in all situations are welcomed, and we are committed to promoting the development of ceramic art, as well as promoting high-level exchanges and cooperation in ceramic art.

In November 2019, IAC signed a cooperation agreement with GIC, which aims to promote future development. IAC is a non-profit organization, and the main work covers some of these academic areas, as well as international exchanges. GIC in the future will also contains some of these goals and contents, and will cooperate with IAC.

New trend is the theme of this seminar. This theme can be big or small, which means could talk much or little. As for this trend or tendency, there are different meanings in different situations. Trend is ambiguous especially in art area. However I think it could reflect my attitude that art is such a sustainable non-individual body.

We can see that we have a lot of artists here today, and I'm really looking forward to this kind of theme speech, and I'm looking forward to communicating with you.
There is a rich content behind our art, which is related to our different languages, cultures and nature. In fact, each of us carries a rich history of their own, and this history is expressed through their culture and artistic language. At the same time, the artist is also committed to the development of the society. Artist is also a social character. With such social consciousness, when we are now in a lot of crisis, including the crisis of pandemic outbreak and economic environment, we could use art to solve how we understand ourselves under this kind of circumstances, how we organize our own society and personal lives, how we think about the future. Art will give us our own answers, especially in the face of the changing tide of the world.

Art in fact has been associated with the environment. Whether it be literature, stage art or ceramic, artist is sensitive to environment, climate change. We can feel a lot of environmental problems affecting the development of art, including carbon emissions, climate change, waste and so on. We can see that art is powerful and capable to making a difference. Can we find a new language to express ourselves in the face of new challenges in our cultural life? At the same time, finding some new solutions? In this kind of culture field, will art lose its voice and rights? Becoming just an echo or a political tool? Can some of our contradictions and conflicts be expressed in the arts? What unique views do young artists have on art and life? Where are we heading today? Will the future be helpless, or do we simply lack the potential energy and motivation to take action?

Ceramic artists will use function and rich strategy understanding. They use their knowledge as a weapon to explore environmental problems, which could be reflected from the exhibition’s work of many of our new members. It shows the interdependence between the environment, materials, and the human being, which is a simple interdependence that we often ignored. At the same time we will also explore the vulnerability of the living things on earth. Artists cooperated with material by putting art into circumstances. Material itself also conveys a feeling of self confidence. we live in a age with rapid change, in terms of science and technology and other aspects. At the same time, we are facing a lot of crises, including in the environment, and we have been talking about the connection between human beings and materials. The craft is to reach this point, and the craft and ceramics represents this kind of phenomenon.

This kind of relationship is complex, and at the same time also is diverse. Therefore, craft artists are experts in materials industry. Their whole career is in dealing with different materials, different elements, and to explore new possibilities. Using their ever-expanding knowledge of materials, they discussed issues related to people and the environment. At the same time, ceramic artists also play an important role in discussion. They are experts in their field.

What role does IAC play? We are constantly changing. Especially pandemic outbreaking led to a forced increase in distance between people. We were forced to isolated from each other so we have to get together online. Software like Zoom, which we might not have used before, now becomes a connection that we have to use. Of course, crises can make us stronger, and they can make us make firm and clear value choices. All of these crises are actually going to strengthen the community connections. We will find ourselves in need of others and in need of society in many important aspects of our lives. So how do we move forward with IAC in the future? How do we continue some of the practices and thoughts that we did before the epidemic? And then what changes need to be made? Of course, we need to continue to develop and keep pace with the times. And then to provide more resources for our members, we have to create more of these possibilities, both online and offline. How are these gatherings going to happen? How are we going to keep communicating? How are we going to continue to fulfill the mission of IAC? How do we make this kind of interaction between people, including interaction between human and nature. To convey more professional information about member’s work & exhibition & project information, IAC also needs to increase this kind of communication among its members. We have this kind of human resources so this could be achieved under the framework of IAC. Since we have collectors, venues, academies, individuals and members, this kind of collaboration is possible. We need to minimize the impact of epidemic on our activity. At the same time, we need to maintain this kind of cross-cultural communication. This cross-cultural communication is critical to the survival of IAC. Whether it's our organizational activities or our individual activities, we need to think about how we organize them. so that we can rethink our organizational forms in order to adapt to the changes that are taking place. We need to rethink organizational forms to adapt to current changes.

What position are ICA in? Especially in the post-epidemic era, we have a lot to break through to build a broader perspective. The think tank needs to have better strategies for expanded development.

We need to be inspired to be more sensitive to the environment, culture, and society. We need to better plan for the future in the post-epidemic era, we need to better reflect on the past to respond to different cultures.

It contains a lot of different ways, including the development of the community, academic research organizations, sustainable development, academic resources, seminars publications, offline exhibitions and so on. These are all things that we need to think about.

Of course, this kind of cooperation should be global. IAC should be able to represent the global level. And the financial support should also be kept up, so that we can have the funds to hold more global or local activities. We need to continue to strengthen our cooperation with (UNSCAL) and there needs to be more activities to achieve this cooperation. We have been continuously explore new things and the world around us. What matters is involving actively. The smallest change may caused a storm like the butterfly effect. In order to change our life and production, so we must constantly reflect and reorganize, both in our thoughts and in our actions.

Thank you!

Lv Pinchang: Mr. Tobien, thank you for such a wonderful speech. I understand that Mr. Tobien expressed his point of view from two aspects of, one is the connotation of the new trend of development of the ceramic art. He made a new interpretation, in fact an eternal value judgment of art. He especially emphasized the artist's social consciousness, responsibility consciousness. Since we are living in an era of great technological change in our culture and art, he asked whether there is enough power to change our reality and environment. He put forward his own thinking, and came up with his own practical solutions. Therefore, what he emphasizes is that artists should play an important role and assume more social responsibilities.

In addition, he also put forward many constructive ideas and opinions on the future work and development of IAC, which is to make us actively think about the status and position of IAC in international affairs. In particular, he raised many new expectations on how IAC plays full role and influence in the post-epidemic era. Thank you, Mr. Tobien.

Now let's welcome Mr. Liu Zheng, professor of China Academy of Art, to give a speech.

Liu Zheng: Distinguished online and offline friends! Thanks to the organizing committee for giving me 15 minutes to speak. Today's theme is the new trend of development of IAC. I have been thinking about how to introduce, introducing biennial exhibition with more than 20 years history held by Hangzhou or introducing the development trend of Chinese contemporary ceramic art. In the end I decided to introduce my five young fellows and me. They are my students. We hope to reflect the development of Chinese contemporary ceramic art from a small point by what we are doing and what we are thinking. I was borne in 60s of 20 century, the oldest of our six. The remaining five were borne in respectively 70s, 80s and 90s of 20 century. Our main creation time has been from the 80s until today. These 40 years are the 40 years of China’s reform and opening up. As the creators of ceramic art, our creative process and thoughts also develop and change accordingly. Next, my speech consists two parts, one is about my own creation, the other is about the creation of my five students.

Over the years, my pottery creation has been changing from stereo to plane. What has not changed is the theme of people and the attention and expression of beauty that they are interested in and pursue. In the late 20th and early 21st century, we were mainly working with pottery and human bodies, in the old way, for me the body was the medium, but I was really interested in the spirit of the body and the texture of the clay and glaze. In terms of expression, I was inspired by the theory of artist conception and the method of brush and ink in traditional Chinese painting.

Since 2008, I turned to ceramic painting creation. What I used most were the two ingredients I didn't like the most at the beginning of my major: magnetic plates and pigments. I didn't like it before. One reason was that I thought the magnetic plate was flat, close to ordinary painting. The other reason was that the paint on the pigment was not very different from ordinary painting pigments, and lacked the taste of ceramic kiln fire. Now I have changed that option long time ago, and I have gone in the opposite direction in my thinking. Magnetic plate painting is regarded by me as the most challenging ceramic carrier. Painting ceramic features on ceramic objects are easier because the objects themselves exist naturally. However flat surfaces are not like ceramic objects。If there is not enough material language features of ceramic painting, there is almost no significance as ceramic painting can exist. Therefore, the magnetic plate always inspires my passion for ceramic painting material performance.

The first pigment of ceramic painting is actually quite varied, and the question is how do we give them the opportunity to create a defense in the kiln fire. In addition to the material language, my magnetic plate paintings have been striving to show and follow the beauty I like in my heart. I've painted a lot of Nazarites . Because of the beauty of the spiritual world of practitioners, I always have a strong respect and curiosity. This is a very old painting subject, the most famous such as the sixteen Chinese Song Dynasty Arhats. The two paintings I am introducing now are the themes of the front winding of the Nazarites and the thread. I think they are the relationship between the precepts and freedom, which are contradictory, but I think they are also the driving force and means for the continuous development of human beings. I also think they are of special aesthetic beauty.

In the past two years, the creation form of magnetic plate painting has changed somewhat, and the expression method is more perceptual. The pigment is thicker, and after aging, it shows a different texture from other pigments with metallic luster. This is what I have been working hard for. The theme is three people.

In the past two years, I have also carved a lot of purple sand teapot, which is an ancient ceramic trade in China. This is a part of one of the works. It is also an eastern smiling face that I like in my heart.

Thank you for listening to my talk about my work.

Next, I would like to introduce my five student fellows. The reason why we are called student fellows is that we are not only teachers and students, but also fellows on the road of ceramics. There are many fellows in the Academy of Arts where I work. However it is often difficult to introduce someone else's work, even a friend you know very well, because it is only the third party's feeling.

First of all, Li Zenglong, a doctoral candidate in China Academy of Arts, has been devoted to the creation of steel for many years. His works are large and thick, from kneading clay to molding, from glaze to firing, all completed by himself. I think he is a history of ceramic creation. Li Zenglong is also a lover of traditional Chinese culture. He mixes a lot of words, the situation and language of star furniture in his outline, which is what makes his works so rich and profound to me.

Next, I would like to introduce Xu Xinhua, another doctoral candidate in the China Academy of Art. I think he is a harsh reflector who moves forward in the process of criticism and reflection of creation. This clothes series is his early works. Also the bone and ruins series work. He often destroyed his own work, break, damage, and then reconstruct. This is the reconstruction of his works. It is a square, cemetery of his work. It is a kind of quiet, or called the silence of the special.

This is a screenshot of a video of him destroying his works. In this video, he broke his works one by one in a very quiet and empty environment, with a very clear voice.

Another piece of work by Xu Xinhua made me feel amazed. It was the work that he bit out with his mouth. As a teacher familiar with the history of ceramics and well aware of the relationship between clay and water, I was moved by like after thousands of years by his work that he bit out with his mouth.

Third is Xiong Kaibo. His bachelor's and master's tutor is me. Xiong Kaibo and the former two fellows are different. He gets a lot of inspiration from the ancient Chinese bronze ware modeling, and presents a very precious and profound quality in his creation. T here was a very famous book, "Si Pin" of Tang Dynasty, which contains 24 items. The first item is the soul of the bear, which I think is what he has been pursuing.

Next introduced was Wang Jie, a recent graduate of master degree. He won the only prize in the ceramics category at the five-yearly Chinese Art Exhibition. His works are made bit by bit with thin layer and big shape. The creative process is extremely careful and boring. He is really like a man of practice, challenging his own endurance and will. Every knot on it was a point he had moulded.

Last introduced is Xu Chaoqi, a doctoral candidate at China Academy of Art. He has been studying the appearance of stone surfaces on ceramic materials. His works are always trying to be treated in different ways, from different natural glazes to magnetic surfaces polished and even inlaid. I think he is a researcher and creator. He also has a great wood kiln firing and team. His wood kiln works are also very popular among ceramic lovers, and the highlight of his works is the Mosaic of glass.

The above is my speech, thank you.

Lv Pinchang: Thank Professor Liu Zheng for this wonderful introduction. We know that there are some important colleges and universities as Chinese ceramic art education centers, Chinese Academy of Arts, and Art Academy of Tsinghua University, Ceramic Institute. Liu Zheng is the Professor in China Academy of Arts, which is a research and teaching university that studies pottery art performance and implements modeling. They have done a lot of influential activities over the years, such as the Youth Ceramic Biennale, as well as international forums in various situations. As I said just now, China Academy of Art is a leading and prominent university in the cultivation of Chinese ceramic art talents. There is no doubt that we have just seen the works of Mr. Liu Zheng himself and those of several students recommended by him. On the one hand, his clear works have organized his entire artistic experience from sculpture to multi-plane painting, expressing his love for Chinese culture. At the same time, from the works of his students, we can see that they have unique pursue and their own style. Thanks to Mr. Liu Zheng for that wonderful introduction.

Now let's welcome our third speaker, Ms. Claudia Cassari, Director of the International Ceramic Museum in Italy.

Claudia Kassari: Hello, nice to see you. I'm glad to meet you online, I hope you are safe in good health. In such an environment to participate in today's seminar, I would like to thank the organizer for giving us this opportunity to have a collision of ideas and appreciation of the works, and I would like to thank GIC in particular. Ceramic art is also a very complicated theme in Europe, so I am very happy to share with you today.

I'm going to start with these images from an artist in Spain. At the beginning of this year, he produced some of the work before epidemic quarantine. You can see, the epidemic has changed our entire system, international exchanges and cooperation. Our ceramic art is one example. In fact, many projects have been postponed or cancelled. A lot of exhibitions and competitions may be delayed without exact time. Our world seems to be turned into a closed world. However at the same time, it is constantly changing day by day, which brings a lot of pressure to our ordinary life, and also brings a lot of pressure to the creation by artists. I have been living in quarantine for a while, then I don't know what kind of state it will be for next year. We have a lot of exhibitions originally planned, including the publication of some books and some other activities , however have been postponed. Everything is in a state of uncertainty. Currently, my country is not able to hold such international activities.

However even in such a state of complete lockdown, artists will not stop creating. Not only artists, some galleries and exhibition halls are also on display.

As you can see, I work in museum. I organized a lot of activities and worked with a lot of artists. Thanks to their generous support we've been able to put on a lot of activities at a very difficult time. As I said, a lot of the old ways didn't work now, so we need to support each other to find new interaction and cooperation. Sometimes some of our online activities could have a small number of audience. Our museum also held some online activities, at the same time these activities are going to support some young designers and artists.

CERDEECERDEE is a European project that supported young entrepreneurs, designers and artists to share experiences and best practices in such a difficult time. I also attended a share this month. The share is related to culture. Different artists from different countries, all took advantage of the Internet to share their art. Maybe at the beginning of the lockdown, our artists disappeared for a while, during which they reconsidered and worked in a different situation. When the epidemic eased, they bring us together on line.

As Tobien Kowalbo just said, we're going to talk about new trends. New trends emerged in our ceramics during the development of the world. I noticed that we will have such a deeper need then to emphasize these more in our ceramic art side like a painting or a color, and so on. Then you can see, this is a set of works by a British artist. These works are very rich and colorful. These are some examples. We started with sculpture and then interacted with our space, while exploring the interchanging situation of the major culture of these works.

We also see another very obvious changes, which is our environment changes. You can see, we need to protect the planet that we live, to protect our resources. Since this goal is urgent, many agencies and organizations are committed to working on it. The language of ceramic is a very good language for artists to express their views. These pictures are from an South African exhibition. The exhibition didn't go on as long as it had; it closed rather abruptly. Then this is the work of a European artist who lived all over Europe, but he was born in Italy, and he expressed his reflection on how it destroyed our planet. Then this is also a work of an exhibition, which is now closed. There's a lot of work about the fragmentation of our nature, the connection between our daily lives and nature.

AscarLucy MorrowAnd now we see this installation art. It's a large installation made by Ascar who is from Argentina and now lived in Italy. He made the wall unit with different partitions. It's a design work and we see there are a lot of fragments. It's a ceramic fragment. Lucy Morrow is an Irish woman writer. This is her work. Her work has also been selected for the exhibition. This is also a special installation with fragments.

We also have a lot of questions about our different ideologies, personal identities, politics, and so on. And there's a lot of collisions of view, and these are the waves of history. Human beings need to reflect in this time.

We can see that he also inspired the art which is the third aspect. It is the agitation and reflection of this kind of thought that we chose such a work to participate in the exhibition and to represent this theme. And you can see this is also a piece of facial makeup. Actually he's talking about the identity of individual, and the masks that we might wear in our daily lives, including the ideology that is implied.

In these works, we see a very common strategy, a very common practice, through art to show a lot of different themes, regardless of any art, music or stage performance, track pottery… Our museum provided a space, like movie theaters and other venues, to support them with the art performance.

Alessandro RomaPaola PotiArtist itself, however, they will also participate some themes, to conduct a dialogue. This dialogue might be related with sculptures and ceramics. They use their art to talk to their environment, to talk to the society around them. We also have a lot of exhibitions on this theme. This one is in Italy.

Alessandro Roma is a sculpture artist. Paola Poti is a dance artist. He did a good expression of dance and ceramic, a combination of movements.

Sarah FraserThis is another exhibition in UK, and these are some women. Sarah Fraser, a female artist. This is a project with social meaning. She will finish this work together with these women. This is very important to certain group of people. This also has experimental meaning. This is meaningful to a lot of artists. Artist will finish works with these turbaned women. We also do special projects at special times. As you can see, art can also serve the society. For example, there were some women who suffered from domestic violence or psychological trauma in the past. Artists worked with them to heal the trauma. This is the environment. This is an activity in Florence, a kind of lab, studying the interaction between art and people with Parkinson's disease. We also participated in a creative project for ceramic, and we also interacted with them. We had this interaction with Alzheimer's disease, and we used ceramic to help them relieve their symptoms, also to help them reconstruct and retain their memories.

2020What we were missing during months of the epidemic was this kind of space sharing. This is a kind of cultural interaction under the premise of space sharing. There is no substitute for this kind of on-the-spot interaction, including a lot of ceramic art. We had activities that combine ceramic with other art forms, like concerts and so on. We all hope to be able to do such a field experiment in the future. However we need to wait until the past of 2020. Future is uncertain. Fortunately, some governments have also provided financial support to artists, and museums have benefited from this financial support. In Italy, our Cultural Department has also issued some policies. Especially museum collection provides corresponding support to artists, and exhibition planner. In the future, this kind of participation will be activated in our network, and this kind of network sharing is very important and plays a fundamental role. Our meetings are good examples. we want to be able to return to normal life, however we know and should be prepared that even if it is return to normal life, it will be a new normal life, not like the life before pandemic outbreak. Art has always been able to reflect and adapt to the society. At the same time, art can also give people strength. So we need to try to make art and culture a way of fighting change, and then protecting ourselves, and also a way of preserving memory. We all know that arts and culture are our mental health and support for our spiritual world.

Thank you! Also hope that next year everything will be different. We will have a chance to share and will have this kind of the chance to meet each other. We can create and communicate together. So far this situation is the best we can do now. Thank you for listening to me. I hope all of you are in good health. I look forward to meeting you. Thank you!

Lv Pinchang: Thank you, Curator Claudia Kassari, for your wonderful speech. Speaking based n museum and different exhibitions, Claudia Kassari shares with us the outstanding creations of the colorful artists from different countries. Through these works, we can see that they are all paying attention to contemporary social and cultural phenomena, including personal identity, environment, and the thematic function of art in different ways and means. Of course, it also includes an interactive relationship between ceramic art and environmental space, sculpture, art and people. I think the sharing of these works makes us understand the current development status of ceramics in the world during the epidemic. At the same time, she was deeply worried about some uncertain factors during the epidemic. However, her positive attitude have given us a good answer. Tomorrow will be even better.

Let’s welcome Professor Wayne Hagby from Alfred Great Ceramic Art Museum of Alfred University, New York, USA.

Wayne Hagby: Hello everyone, I’m Wayne Hagby, curator and chief planer of the exhibition of Alfred university in New York. I want to say, I think this is a very good chance. I would also like to thank everyone, thank you to join today's seminar. And thank the new members today for joining us. There is a very soft place in my heart that I have a deep affection for IAC. Actually, I'm very happy to communicate with you today, and I'm also very happy to meet Chinese friends. I think the friendship with these Chinese friends is something I cherish very much. Next, I would like to discuss with you the new development trend of international ceramic art.
Consider the times we live in and the time constraints we have today, I must express my thoughts briefly.

202060I would like to discuss with you about the current development of ceramic art in the United States. Now in the United States we live in what we call a Kafka era. This so-called Kafka era is actually based on the work of Frank Kafka in the early 20th century. The word is used to describe a situation where we have no direction. We live in a very complex time. In fact, American culture is in a state of being lost and drifting with the tide mainly because of the impact of COVID-19. We are also largely shaped by such a distrustful political environment. And there's always some false information on the media platform and a lot of development of what's called identity politics. This has been happening since the black movement of the 1960s. And it is also because of the development of the second wave of feminist awareness and such initiatives as gay liberalization that we have come up with the concept of identity politics.

America is actually facing our cultural confrontation right now. American art and artists sometimes try to ask a lot of questions to find out what their own artistic identity is. But now we have a new emergency. In other words, this will influence the development of our entire ceramic art. As the curator of our Ceramic Art Gallery and Ceramic Museum, I'm currently working with a lot of black artists, Mexican-Americans and Latinos to cooperate in new ways. And also cooperated with all major American art institutions, which are in an era of self-reflection and self-reassessment.

20209EVSEN1200OBTruseIt's just past September of 2020, EVSEN, an art museum in New York, organized the sale of its major works of art to fund the diversity of the works of art. A painting by an artist in the museum has sold for $1,200. And in the process they hope to get more funding to help artists of different races, women artists, and other artists who are underrated and looked down upon. We see the identity and authenticity of individuals in the United States as artist. They have been struggling with this identity theme for long time. Also fought for a long time. We have been celebrating the theme of individual art that reveals universal concepts. This is always going to be the state of political discord that we have now, one of the most important problems in the difficult state of economic development. We now see that authenticity is often very fragile. We often see, for example, what Australian writer (Obtruse) says in the New York magazine. He said we are in the most difficult period for American art and ceramics right now. We face the most difficult and serious unemployment situation of all. The star system for the superior group of artists is a little exaggerated. At the same time we have a lot of anxiety among a lot of consumers which leading it to an irrational way, and very vulnerable. So we have no way to have a better understanding of the existing fashion. And the art works seem to be at odds with the fashion industry.

Therefore, there are some artists who will try to connect themselves with the times. They sometimes have a misconception of what our real trends are. For example, I work with a lot of art organizations at the moment, and we do a lot of ceramic art exhibitions. In fact, as an artist, he can often capture and give meaning to some of the most important periods in the entire history of the United States. These are the artist's photos, his studio. His ceramic works are actually also large-scale installation art.

2019This is also one of his works. This is one of his works from 2019, and we see a structure of this work, which uses a lot of ceramic elements. And this is still a large installation. All of these are the meanings he gives to The Times in his works.

In addition, we see ceramic art also in constant development. Art is actually a core part of our human experience. It is very profound. It goes even deeper than economic and political trends. Art, especially ceramic art, also faces a lot of problems. Especially when it comes to people's feelings, there will also be a new generation of development. These problems will be solved gradually. There is no doubt that the environment in which we live today with art is constantly changing, and the COVID-19 has provided us with a much needed gateway. That is to say, these ceramic artists have been trying for a long time. And a lot of these ceramic artists in other parts of the world, in other parts of the United States have tried a lot of similar things. Smaller space, more limited resources, and that's the challenge they face. But maybe because of the constraints of these challenges, innovation is actually more important and needs to be pushed. We have to think about innovation all the time, and the really good works are always in our business. Virus, war, poverty are taking their own lives, but now all artists, artists in America, are being pushed to the brink. And even some good work can be made out of this chaos.

2021120219There is some good news, when we are celebrating a timeless celebration of ceramic art in the United States, there is a book also appears. He is a writer from England. His work is called Ceramic Art and Civilization. I recently saw the outline of the book. His book will also be published in January 2021. What's more interesting is that the author makes a very important comment about ceramic art. He says many of these books don’t push forward what we think of as the history of ceramic art. What we need is a structured vision of practice, or an idea of interconnectedness. And he actually did a really good job of telling us how to solve the problems that we had so far with the ceramics book. At the same time, we also see new projects at the Alfred Ceramic Museum starting in September 2021. He's also launching a new exhibition called Path to the Tea Bowl. Through his efforts, he hopes to stimulate more dialogue between people, so that people can have more exchanges on ceramic art

What we hope to achieve is the development of ceramic art, even if it will develop for thousands of years, or even more years. Thank you!

19912010Lv Pinchang: Wayne Hagby, thank you very much for the splendid speech. Mr. Wayne Hagby is my teacher, also a very good friend. We meet in Beijing in 1991 ceramic seminar. In fact, we've been seeing each other for over 20 years. He is very influential in his research. He came to China almost every year 10 years ago, so every time he gave a speech in China, the speech was very wonderful and vivid, which deeply touched every artist. Today, he shares some of his thoughts on the state of ceramics in the United States. Specifically, it says that an artist should be open to different things, including art of different races, like black art, Mexican art, minority art, gay art, transgender art, etc. Therefore, I also agree with Professor Wayne's proposal to cooperate with them. You live in a place, you should face the problems of that place. Being problematic is a goal that our art should strive for.

Mr. Wayne Hagby also said that war and poverty cannot kill art. He believes that art will last forever. Art is central to human experience, and that it is more powerful and deeper than economic, social and political trends. Thanks again to Professor Wayne Hagby for his wonderful speech!

IACLet's welcome Janet de Bosse, a former member of the IAC Council and representative of Australia, & New Zealand & South Africa, to be the theme speaker.
Janet de Bosse: I will share in the meeting today, and discuss the new trends. In fact, I find myself looking for experiences of similar moments in the past. I will experience the world, and then we all have to go through cycles in our personal lives. Then there will be something familiar, so I will give a vision of my future. And the vision is also about art, social input and social participation. And then the new trend is such a topic that international trend and international environment is inseparable. However for the first time in many years, we all connected by our epidemic. And then it changes not only our behavior but also our values. And even it changes the way we participate in society.

In fact, we have such expectations for ceramic. Not just artworks, but utensils that we can use in our lives. And we use them to share things, to carry things. That is to say, we are actually exposed to pottery in our daily life. Our clay is also the foundation of ceramic. Before people are very interested in ceramic, especially interested in doing some handicraft arts. Everything has changed in modern times, including the restaurant business around us, or the business we are familiar. The relationship between people and society has changed both at the local level and at the national level. And the status of our ceramic artists is different now and in the past. Their ideas are also different, and maybe the mission of our art is to carry some meaning, to talk about the relationship between people and our materials. What we do through digitization is that our world today is more and more classified, more and more unified, and we need to seek out new experiences. Our younger generation may have different ideas from the previous generation, and the same is true on the artistic level. At the same time, the art created by the young artists themselves is different from that of the previous generation, especially under the influence of the contemporary factors.

I first got into ceramic because my mom was at community college. She took ceramic classes and she became a very active amateur. She has the impulse to create and constant interest, which can be said to be a good foundation for my study. Perhaps ceramic was a craft for him. She did some small crafts before, such as small household chores and mending clothes, or making small household items, but later she found a new hobby, ceramic.

, We are now in the digital age. The amateur pastime is also different. We need to see our international trend. And that's been the same in the past. For example during the Vietnam War, or during our economic crisis of World War II, which actually had a profound impact on the lives of younger generations. They also rejected their parents' lifestyle and chose a new one. The West Coast of the United States has become a hot spot to explore the lifestyle. I had a dream of being a hippie in San Francisco with flowers on my head, and we were consumerist and artisan, and ceramic became trendy because it was artisan. And there were a lot of guide books and classes which were all experimental. It also has a much deeper meaning. It's about questioning finesse and consumption. And you can see that visually. There are many influential tasks that are also carried out in this genre to make art. Today we can see the circulation of history. We are also in a stage of rapid development of globalization. Before, we could travel freely around the world and attend international conferences. However now we are locked in our own living space, which makes us very uncomfortable. We have a rediscovery of ceramics as ceramic artists that will lead us into new ways of social and international engagement. This way is also connected with the network, and it also affects our creation itself, because people have to give play to creativity in such a closed and solitary environment. At the same time, there are some online resources, most of which are free. And it will provide creative suggestions to some novices. Of course, sometimes these courses are quite technical, including private lessons on ceramic. Academic communication is also limited.

19601970We can see our world is in such historical cycle. Our world is a triangular structure with limited people and things on top, with the majority people in the bottom of the pyramid structure frame. This applies for all industries, including our ceramic art. Our enthusiasts, ordinary ceramic learners, become pedestals of the pyramids. I don’t think it is a bad thing because the bigger the base, the more stable our pyramid is. I would also like to share some examples that will help guide the future development of ceramics in Australia as well as in other parts of the world. For example, the 1960s and 1970s were a period full of vitality. Many lovers suddenly became admired persons, and more and more persons took part in social affairs and creation, which was exhilarating.

Before I talk about that, I want to summarize the word hobbyist. enthusiasts derives from French, and the word is love, which is to do something out of love. It may be in such a transitional period, or it may be to make a work, such as making a birthday gift for someone by hand, or it making ceramic or utensil. Or maybe making a small teapot, and drink tea and chat with friends. We, as enthusiasts, shouldn't be ignored. At the same time, as professionals, we should respect enthusiasts. They are not to be underestimated, because they are with love. That is to say, in some ways we are all enthusiasts, because we do things out of love, but some of us become professionals, some of us trying to become professionals, some of us are just enthusiasts. No matter what degree of love will all bring us happiness.

Vipoo SrivilasaWhen we look at the growing number of these people, the growing number of enthusiasts, who love the craft. It's actually a very positive thing, and they have achieved something, which is reflected in their work, but also reflected in this trend. We share an artist named Vipoo Srivilasa, who is from Australia. He is actually close to being a professional, and he has a level of social engagement that many professionals don't have. He also mixes different forms and asked participants to discuss their own thoughts and behaviors. Before that, the participants may not care so much about these thoughts and behaviors. He will turn these into part of his creation, his creation from Buddhism, to emphasize the positive, at the same time to participate in some fund raising project of international and country. He will help specific groups of people, people who have lost family members in the fire. He's also working during the epidemic, doing a lot of work, doing a lot of things online. Many artists donate their time to run workshops and so on, and at the same time, some of their works are auctioned or sold online to help people in need. He is a social activist as well as an artist, and he dedicates a lot of time and energy to the participants of these art projects. This is a banquet he held. He cooked for them, and they not only enjoyed the food, but also the ceramic utensils they had made. He started this project, to taste, to discuss, to share. And he's bringing the food and ceramic combined banquet program to the Australian community. He also shows his banquet suit, which is a ceramic piece that has been exhibited as utensil all along the Australian coast.

He is also concerned with environmental issues and has done many projects to contribute to these environmental issues, including coral reef issues, climate issues and so on. This is our dinner table with beautiful utensils made by these artists themselves. These utensil at the beginning were covered up. As the dinner progressed, more and more utensils were displayed. His artists are all gourmets and cook their own food. There's a Buddhist concept of living in the moment, and they have this kind of sensual pleasure to enjoy this kind of sensual feast. The artist really studied Buddhism deeply and was very sociable and shared his intercultural experiences with a lot of people. He also runs the love lab project. In the love lab, they give a little questionnaire with questions like: which is interesting, what is the ideal love would taste like. He would share some different flavors of food, like little cookies. Different people have different energies. For example, many women are feminine energy, not masculine energy. The other level is to find the person you love. And this is described with an egg, because the egg is such a product of life, such a state, different genders, including male, female, including the abstract sex of hermaphrodite, it is represented with food.

The super hero project during epidemic outbreak situation he held, making people imagine on the internet, if the outbreak, or the virus as a dark superhero then what kind of qualities he will have. He wanted to bring the public in this project, and he wanted give people the opportunity to think differently about what the different characteristics of human nature were. It shows what kind of personality we need to adapt to the impact of the COVID-19. These are projects that are being provided and promoted, through museum exhibitions that are being developed to help people fight COVID-19.

Ramesh Mario NithyendranRameshThe second very famous artist is Ramesh Mario Nithyendran, who is a Sri Lankan artist, and is very interested in the sense of participation in the art of ceramics. He made ceramics, and he is very interested in expressing himself in this way. And this is actually his work. Through the use of ceramic, I think it really highlights his desire, a very direct expression of his own inner voice. I feel very honored to be able to work with Ramesh. We communicated and went to his museum to see his work. He tried to make something that my granddaughter would love, something like this nifty piece. He actually works like a child, and he wants to be able to create his work like a child. He wants to explore in a very open way. However we know that when you have very good skills and very high levels of education and training in ceramic art, it's very difficult to create work without any restrictions as a child.

MEllThe third artist I'd like to share with you is Mell, whose life is just like the work he created. He presents himself as a job rather than dressing like a normal person.
34JaneJaneBamfordThis is actually a part of the environment project, as we are about to work 3 or 4 years ago. It is the artist in Tasmania. We worked with local scientists and industrialist historian. They tried to develop local fisheries and animal health. For example, what we're looking at right now is one such project. They're trying to get people to understand how fish and other marine animals are being affected by rising temperatures, so Jane is also working with other artists to create a beautiful project to get people to understand what's happening to marine animals and how it's being affected by climate change. People like Jane and Bamford are doing research on the fish, informing the public. Show in this way, we're not just engaging with the art form, but helping our institutions, helping our environment. This is also a way that we increasingly seek to develop, through an innovative way of collaboration, we hope to find more creative opportunities and possibilities, to promote a connection between our art and reality.

The next project I'd like to share is a personal workshop where many courses could be provided. I'm sure it's a similar situation in many other countries. By using a space for a lot of middle class people, and then providing them with a lot of courses. For example for middle class people or hobbyists, courses that they can study outside of work. This artist proposed the way to build a workshop in Melbourne. We not only focus on art, but also on how people should connect with the world and participate in the social and social environment.

I think this is very important. Thank you!

Lv Pin-chang: Thank you, Janet de Bos, for your wonderful speaking. He mentioned the epidemic and how to adapt to the current situation as an artist. How to adjust to it, and he gave some of his thoughts, vision and expectations for ceramics. In addition, by sharing the works of several artists, we can see that their art is moving towards a direction of social participation, which may be a future direction. Thank you, Ms. Janet de Bosse.

—Now let's welcome today's last speaker, Mr. Wan Liya, representative of China International Ceramic Society. Welcome!

Vanya: Hello, everyone. First of all, I would like to thank the organizers for providing such an opportunity to exchange ideas. Next, I would like to share with you my personal understanding of the theme of this seminar from my personal experience as an individual artist.

My speech is divided into three parts. The first part is a set of information.

7In my opinion, under the background of today's big era, the ceramic industry in China develops fastest. In fact, the ceramics industry is the most rapidly changing area of technology. In Jingdezhen, a new production line can produce 70,000 pieces daily porcelain wares. The core technology is German production line.
202024In 2020, the production of large rock slabs in China also started a crazy growth mode. For example, this is a production line in Hebei Province that can produce more than 14,000 square meters per day, with a single sheet of 2 to 4 meters in size. There is also large-scale electric porcelain production in Liling of Hunan Province. The scale of the update is also very fast and the development is also very rapid. All of these have strong characteristics of globalization, that is, western core technology, mass production in China, global circulation, and so on.

Compared with the background of this great era, the individual and independent creation of ceramic artists, and the spiritual feelings of the artists for the human being facing the era, seem to have special significance.

Next, I would like to share the second part: to understand the tradition more deeply, to discover new information from the tradition, and to break through the innovation more openly.

I would like to introduce a group of Chinese artists. The first artist is Geng Xue who has a graduate work made by conventional hand-made ceramic porcelain sculpture. He extended the sculpture to video works. This video is a Chinese classic:"Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" and "Hai childe". He also extended the expressive force, injecting some new content into the interpretation of the original work through the sound of broken ceramics and some light and shadow effects. I think this is a more outstanding breakthrough in his expressive force on ceramics.

The second artist, you may be familiar with, Lu Bin from the nanjing college. His works are the traditional retrospection and the current material craft expression. I think he managed to successfully close the circle from both ends, which was a very appropriate combination of some traditional classics and the expressive force on ceramics. In fact, its breakage was caused by some mistakes with steel. The clay was added with some materials that were easy to burst after being affected by moisture. During the exhibition, he kept humidifying the work, and when he humidified it, it gradually burst. The whole exhibition process from the beginning of a complete work to the final disintegration of the work. I think his title is the Great Mercy Mantra, which is also a very good expression of the cycle of life in the ceramic language.

82130The third teacher Tan Hongyu from Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. He started from China traditional gold bricks, the bricks which were supplied to Imperial Palace since Ming dynasty. The production process of this floor brick is very complex and very characteristic. It took eight months to prepare the clay. It took another eight months for his work to dry. It takes nearly two years to make a single brick. The kiln kept burning for more than 130 days. I think Tan Hongyu discovers some new information through images and classic traditional cases.

LVThis is my work. Four years ago in Zhucheng Museum of Shandong Province, I was reattracted by the eggshell black pottery of Longshan Culture. Shandong Province is an important birthplace of Longshan culture. Visiting the museum again at that time gave me a sense of time folding. Again I reconsider what is innovation and breakthrough. In fact, it's hard to imagine that the Longshan culture dates from 2,000 to 2,500 years BC, and has been around for more than 4,000 years. It is hard to imagine that the moulding technology at the time could achieve an average thickness of about one millimeter. Inspired by this, later I made this new Longshan series.The work was later acquired by LV.

In the third part, I would like to introduce some foreign artists.

5I spent about 5 years on continuous research and investigation of the world's modern and contemporary representative ceramic artists, most of which were face-to-face interviews.

This is an artist living in California, but he is a modern and contemporary ceramic art in relatively early time, he once taught in Peter DE vaux college. His works are very few, almost could fit in a pocket. However his works are very delicate and characterized by some miniature sculptures. He himself credits Philippe Guston and Morandi as influences on his work.

This is the work of Jacques Kaufmann, who extends the practice of ceramic creation to the relationship between ceramics and architecture and to a deep consideration of human concern and environmental issues. It is made of ceramics and plants. The ceramics can contain water and regulate the temperature and air of the building. These are some useful attempts made by him.

This is a young artist from Japan. His name is Takuro Sada. This artist has made a breakthrough in the performance of ceramic glaze. The form of his works is still using the tea bowl as the carrier. The tea bowl itself uses the meaning of Japanese semiotics to combine the performance power of glaze with the meaning of semiotics.

1020This artist is one of the artists of the troupe, Claudia Casanovas. His this work is like an ultimate experiment in ceramics, with nearly 10 or 20 tons of ceramic mud, molded into a large volume of work. He specially have an industrial refrigerator for this work. When this work is wet, it is frozen in the refrigerator. There will be texture changes between the moisture of the frozen soil and the clay material that cannot be reached by the conventional temperature. After drying, a kiln is specially made for this work, and then it is fired. This is the final result of his work. His work is a monumental sculpture created for a historical event. He also made four concrete walls to enclost the sculpture in the space.This is not only his experiment in ceramics, but also his ideological and personal express.

2020The artist is Alexandra Ingle Flette. He is a Dutch and French artist. He used 20 tons of mud from a relic. This relic is a trench during world war I. There was a combat happened in that trench whre almost thousands of people died there. He was so moved by this historical story that he piled 20 tons of mud on either side of the trench. The performance of modern dance behavior was held on pile, reflect the spiritual activities of people and leave traces. After that, he built a kiln in the trench, dried the mud and burned it into ceramics. The burnt ceramics can be retained forever, and in the texture of the ceramics, I also feel the smell of the smoke of war, so the impression that this scene leaves behind is actually very moving and shocking.

This is a young artists in Netherlands, Jehoram Van DE Vere. He has a very good breakthrough in the way ceramics were shaped. He added some magnetically sensitive material to the ceramic clay. The mud is fluid, so he created a strong magnetic field for it, and the magnetic field's gravitational pull creates the shape of his work. This artist has made remarkable breakthroughs in the excavation of ceramic materials, the forming and expression of ceramic itself, and the way of forming. All of these mechanisms are created by creating a strong magnetic field. Through the magnetic field, the flow of mud formed this shape.This is how he created the magnetic field and shaped it.

The last one I want to introduce is the Danish art Bodie Menz. The diversified development trend of modern and contemporary ceramics, makes me feel the significance of adhering to tradition and defending the noumenon of ceramics itself. I had a face-to-face interview with her at that time, and she said that in fact, the appearance of her works was not exaggerated. They were just conventional shapes, such as cylinders. But, she says, when you keep talking and communicating with simple things, you will find something very profound. So I think Danish artist Bodie Menz brings a cool breeze to this noisy world with the quiet and calm power of her work.

For the development trent of ceramic art, whether it's the impact of digital technology, the development of network technology, or even the upheaval of society, the eternal trend of art development is always to continuously review the past, break through innovation, and continuously contribute new life experience and spiritual style to mankind, which should be the eternal trend of art development.
Thank you!

Lv Pinchang: Thank you for your introduction. I think he talked about two aspects. One is the future impact on art from the perspective of China's ceramic industry, such as the current industrial revolution in China and the revolution in the ceramic industry. At the same time, he also introduced the works of several Chinese and foreign artists. I analyzed and took a look, and found that most of these artists had made some breakthroughs in the original ceramic art itself, and had some cutting-edge exploration. Of course, what he mentioned here is more important, how to make use of traditional resources, how to defend the language of the ontology, but also to seek a breakthrough, to find the development of ceramic art in the future, thank you, Mr. Wan Liya.

Up to now, six theme speeches finished their speaks, all of them talked about the change of the development trend of ceramic art in the international environment in the future from different perspectives, especially about how to deal with and make changes during the epidemic period. Therefore, everyone has put forward good opinions and suggestions. I don't think I'll say much more, because Jacques Kaufman is going to make a concluding statement.
We'll leave some time for artists online and in this room for question and discussion session, and now we'll invite you to ask questions.

Jacques Kaufman:I haven't seen your questions now, maybe we speak already very clear. Perhaps you already know during the meeting, this is a very open session, at the same time, I think actually to ask some questions clearly is not a simple matter, but I am now ready to my summary. I hope to mention this again during my summary.

Now let's see if there are any questions from the audience here in Beijing.

？Online Question: I have a question, however since it's a personal question for me, I won't say this question. If there are any questions from the audience here in Beijing? Could you please tell us what kind of questions the fans of GIC want to ask? In fact we have been in constant development, some of them are about to collect our works. Actually we want to be able to promote the development of this project and we are very willing to go to this way of live or online exhibition to go to all over the world, especially invite those from those young artists in the world. We have not decided whether we can carry out such an online exhibition. I don't know if GIC is considering such an approach. I think we need such a think tank to jointly promote our online exhibition. And set different exhibition topics and topics. I think with such regulations and plans, we can carry out exhibitions in various ceramic fields online. I've seen now that we have a lot of different directions and different topics, but we wanted to say, can we think about which topics are more important, and pick out the more important topics related to ceramics. Many of these topics are actually about high technology and the connection with the traditional ceramic field, and so on. We can actually pick out a good topic and discuss online.
I think it's a process.

Lv pinchang: now let's invite Mr. Zheng zhi to reply.

IACIACIACZheng Zhi: First of all, I would like to answer on behalf of theGIC. I am the investor of GIC. We are the investment group of Sino-Ocean Group and I am the person in charge. As President Lv Pinchang, Mr. Jacques Kaufman, Mr. Tobien Cavasbo, Mr. Du Tonghe have all talked about the nature of the museum, it was originally a window for Chinese ceramists to communicate with the world. Then we become the IAC group members. After discussion with Mr Jacques kaufmann and Tobien Kowalbo and many members of IAC, we are determined to develop this museum into a borderless art museum, mainly serving the IAC and the ceramists of the world. In the past, we focused more on China and the world. In the next step, the museum will be positioned as a ceramic art museum in the world, an unofficial art museum without borders.

5G6GAIVRAlthough the purpose is to carry out the work of the world's ceramists and academic exchange of a platform, in the next step, we will invest more funds to build the most advanced and perfect online art museum in accordance with the development mode of modern science and technology. As you all know, with the development of modern communication and technology, online and offline is a way of life for people and a way of life in the future. For example, e-commerce, which we are all familiar with, used to be department stores and offline chain stores, but now it has developed into Amazon in the world, Taobao, Jingdong, Tmall and so on in China, solving the online business behavior. In fact, our future art museums are the same as this one. In the past, large-scale art museums were offline art museums. Many offline art galleries around the world will gradually form online art galleries with the development of global technology. 5G communication, 6G, AI, VR holographic technology development, will help establish more and more global online art museum. Technology will give artists all over the world, like today, certainly better experience than today. Our future exhibition and academic exchange will be completed online.

？Mr. Jacques Kaufman just said that he has a lot of ideas and wonder if could talk with young people and young artists in the world. I think that's ok. Why? Our former curator also pays special attention to the development of young people. He is the first generation of ceramic people in our country after the founding of the People's Republic of China and enjoys a high reputation in China. He has been promoting the development of Chinese ceramics. Today we talked in a unofficially way. And now we're talking in the Chinese industry, and as I said, this museum has become worldwide. We invited Mr. Jacques Kaufman to be the director of our museum, and Mr. Jacques Kaufman agreed after a long deliberation. In the next step, our museum is truly a world-class art museum. In the next step, we will better serve artists. We will have a greater guarantee, and in the future, we will make up more funds to serve more perfect technologies and ceramists around the world. Thank you!
Jacques Kaufman:I'm interested in themes of Mr. Tobien Kowalbo, Claudia Cassari and Wayne Hagby. They all put the ceramic art to a very high height, concerned about the human environment, the relationship between man and nature, epidemic and how people survive. In fact, I think this question should be concerned with philosophers, sociologists and anthropologists, but today if we take art to such a high level, how do we do it, this is very important. Because contemporary pottery is no longer a craftsman, but an artist. This is not only a problem of pottery, but also of contemporary art as a whole. And I would like to ask specifically, how the artist thinks, how he participates in society, to make ceramic a tool for participation in society, not just as a display of skill, but as a reflection of thought. From what point of view, how to do it, how to implement it. Because if we do not discuss this issue, we may encounter many problems in the ceramic creation. In fact, I really hope that there will be such a response in the ceramic industry. Answer to the question raised by Mr. Tobien Kowalbo, I think a president always has a goal and a big point of view, so I would like him to answer it. The concept is easy to put forward, but how to do it, thank you!

Tobien Kowalbo:This problem is not so easy to answer. I actually also need to consider. I'm not particularly sure what this higher level represents, because I myself also will make the ceramic art. I am a craftsman, I try to express my views from the perspective of the creator. I will interact with the world. The raw material for my creation is clay. It can be said that ceramic is a kind of language, and this language is actually very extended. And then it's a way of life, it's a way of self-expression, where we're actually speaking about our lives as creators. And that's what we're supposed to do as creators, and we're supposed to be sensitive and aware of our environment. Personally, I think, frankly speaking, for example, I personally myself, if I have the ability to express, to express the ability of some important things, then actually my audience is also having the ability to read this interpretation. And the way that we, as artists, engage in this is that we're constantly reflecting and asking questions. Sometimes asking questions is more important than giving answers. We have to keep asking questions, and then we have to create new knowledge and new information. As more and more people get involved in this work, it will actually become a power. This in itself is a power, and then he might not have to go to a very high level, not have to go to a very expensive museum, not have to sell at a very high price, which is another issue. In my opinion, the original heart of the creator is actually a kind of power, and the life of each of us is the source of power.

It may not be a very relevant answer, but it is my own voice as a creator through experience from my life and my creative life. Other comments or questions are welcomed.

Jacques Kaufman: I think it's a very big problem, it is difficult to give a definite answer, but I also can speak some, including the discussion and collision of ideas. Tobien Kowass discusses the difference between online and offline museums, which is one of the keys to our post-epidemic era. No one said I only support online presentation or only support the offline presentation which is impossible,. And our job is to make sure that all of our guests here today can integrate online and offline. Pure online is not a good solution, offline is very important, not only Beijing, but also various academic institutions and museums to communicate and cooperate. Claudia Cassari can you talk about that?

1Claudia Kassari:Thank you Jacques Kaufmann. I don't agree that we can organize the pure online display or exhibition. Only by online I personally think that doesn't work, but in some special cases, we have no other choices, such as the current epidemic. We need to start the online display way, then use this way to support our artists. We will start from 1 month to implement this way which is helpful for artists. Because this year we can not normally carry out offline display. However, our online exhibition will also contain some explanations, because it is not only digital, but also the protection of another situation. It also needs the communication of another situation, both for collectors and visitors.

？I want to stress here that everyone had a very difficult time of the last few months. And of course we have to see and appreciate these wonderful exhibits, but the presence is so important, there's no substitute for it. And then for example, the cost of some of our online displays, including our online contests, how can we award something that we don't have access to see on site? We need to interact with them offline. And then works of art are for the soul to feed, not for the eyes to enjoy, so I emphasize the importance of being present. Museums also need to open their doors to all people. The exhibits need to be seen and felt by all people. Because online is only a virtual museum after all, the offline value is irreplaceable.

？Of course, we need to further perfect online, such as providing online interpreter. Many people cannot see it with their own eyes, so they can see the same effect as offline as much as possible, but only as much as possible, there is no substitute for offline. There's no substitute for being there, because it's so important to us and our souls. Again, our exhibits are designed for the soul of each of us. In this situation, I’m worried under this situation, what am I worried about? What's the future of museums and artists? I get a lot of emails every day, a lot of artists, museum directors and curators who are highly anxious because a lot of their projects are not going to be on schedule. Are we online just a transitional stage? Are we more looking forward to tomorrow? We, as curators and planners who run museums, we also need to plan new projects to support artists. But there's only so much that the environment allows us to do, and we need to work together. That's very important.
JACQUES KAUFMAN: Thank you, Claudia Kassari.At least the people in front of the screen really appreciate Nian's point of view. Thank you for sharing.Let's give Wayne Hagby some time.

Wayne Hagby: I agree with Claudia Cassari. We're really in a dilemma, and it's a dilemma that's not to be underestimated. The Internet is a communication tool as well as a favorable tool for promotion. It can also stimulate people's interest. It can be said that it is an invitation to go to the museum to encourage more people to enter the museum. At the same time, the Internet situation is both a limitation and an opportunity for museum staff, curators and artists. I’ll share some of my points.
VRVR360VRI have such a guest curator, he and I develop the VR exhibition. This VR exhibition is about maximizing brain power. People from all over the world at the Ceramic Museum, they can see an exhibition like this on the website. We also invited some ceramic artists who will go into such a world and create virtual reality experiences. So I invited our guest curator and four artists from different backgrounds to work on this project. And then they actually just went and prepared some sketches, and the sketches were done in their studio. For example, some installations, etc., are presented in the form of sketches. And then I contacted a company, which was a multi-platform company, who had done animation and video games. I also invited four designers, and then each designer collaborated with an artist. Then they worked together to create such an all-powerful capacity maximization device, which is a virtual reality experience. Through their sketches, they finally created such an interactive 360-degree VR experience without blind corners. People can see works by sitting at home with your computer, or even on your mobile phone.

VRVRThen, if the pixel of the mobile phone is high, it can be carried everywhere, including experiencing different Spaces. Both the mobile phone and the computer are fine. This is proof of the possibility that expanding the experience it brings to us. At the same time, we should also make ceramic art appeal to young people. And it can actually be presented in more than one medium. There are a lot of slash youth now, he may be a ceramic artist, a media worker, a high-tech worker, etc. But they may not yet feel the possibility, or whether they are allowed to combine their different fields. That's what we want to say to our museum media audience. They represent a large part of our audience, and we're there to give artists good points to think about. It is possible for our creation to be extended in this way. It can also make the audience feel very novel, and their creativity can also be expressed in this way. We also invited them to do more VR experience projects, and we also started cooperation with many companies. As we can see, more and more ceramic artists are invited to participate in such broader exchange programs, to exert their energy on a broader platform. When I became the director of our museum, I actually started out with some paintings, and I also came into contact with some new situations, which were kind of like sketchbook, and we also had some nesw ideas behind it. Many exhibitions also use this novel concept. For ceramic artists, it is often impossible to see some works in this kind of sketch style. Just like some of our other artists, they may finally see their sketch book, which is a prototype of a work, but not for us ceramic artists. So I'm talking about the opportunities that VR projects offer them. It is the rudiments of their works that make them come alive and become an interactive situation, and also allow our ceramic artists to re-experience the creation process, which is very good.

Of course, I do not mean to despise ceramic art, but there are many different possibilities for ceramic art to be expanded and developed. So, there are a lot of ways to do it, with some new technologies, there are infinite possibilities for us to create art. At the same time, we also need to encourage our ceramic artists to expand their creative career, to be more open to their creation, to think about the way they put themselves into the field of art. Their input may also give more people creative inspiration and even inspire creative connections. Thank you!

Lv pinchang: Time is limited so finally, I'd like to welcome our meeting host, Professor Jacques Kaufman, to give us a final summary.

Jacques Kaufman: I think you actually know that it's often awkward to sumarize in this session. I've been listening to the discussion and I've been looking at my screen, just like you're looking at this screen. I actually have a lot of questions on the screen, and a lot of discussion. There were some official people who said that they were very happy that we were officially starting a new era. We are starting a new journey. There is a lot of excitement and we are seeing new members which is very important to us. We also have new members from the IAC joining our industry.

Of course, I want to thank all of our speakers, I also want to thank you for holding this seminar today. We all know that our conference is actually very short for each of us. For example, time is too short for our speaker. We hope to promote further development in the field of ceramics. I think this seminar is kind of like a test. We're going to test whether we can do it this way. One of the things that really embarrassed me was that I couldn't see on my screen who attended this seminar. So I think if possible, when someone is speaking, we could see their face, and an introduction under their face or with name, and then a translation under their name in another language. So that I know who he is, where he comes from, and so on. I hope we'll be able to implement this technology in the near future. We can hold this kind of event or meeting at a time, for example, we can discuss some specific topics, and we can use this online way. For example, in IAC, or in some projects with GIC, we can think about solving these problems.

I cannot summarize everything, because there is so much we discussed this afternoon. From Wayne Hagby's side, we need good works which is very important. Because when Wayne talks about relationships, other people actually talk about the connection between inspiration and our real world. And we could find inspiration in tradition, which is a little bit different from what Wayne Hagby’s opinion. We actually need to balance it a little bit, and that means we need to know the reality, how do we balance something traditional with something that we have now.

As we often know, we need to strike a balance between these two extremes. One is what we would call social or political chaos, but as Wayne also pointed out, we can often make art out of social and political chaos. But others argue that art can be inspired by tradition. In fact, we can see that we find a balance between the two views. Moreover Claudia Cassari talks about social inequality or unrest and so on. Another speaker mentioned that the real integration of our lives and cultures is not about our interests. What's more, like we do the laundry every day, or we eat every day, this is not an end goal of our life. We actually artists, they have a more important thing which is to influence our feelings. Feelings are the most important. That is, for me at least, it's how I feel that's more important than the trivial things we do in our daily lives.

Others in the chat records said that there is no set way for artists to solve problems. But we can say, we need to come up with ideas, imaginative ideas, to integrate our imagination with reality, to integrate life with art. Our artists also talk about having a resonance with our souls. So I think, for another artist, Janet de Bosse, who mentioned two things, that ceramics are really important tools, and that we really value the value of such a tool by participating in the creation of ceramics. We have a lot of different materials, different Spaces, different tools. I think it's actually a kind of creative triangle. In other words, we have the material, space,and tools. This is a triangle structure, and these three things can give us value. Jeanette de Bosse also talks about global and local interaction, which is a responsibility, also the responsibility of the IAC. We don't want to lead different regions. We want different regions to interact. That's our responsibility and our mission. sion.

Actually Wan Liya mentioned that, he also showed us about some western works. They are trying to find such a source, can be said to be the source of material, the source of culture or the source of the social problems that we can see. And it's all about, like Wayne mentioned, in his museum it is very concerned with the source causes of social problems, how do we find these ways, how do we find the right ways, how do we connect the sources, not just the technical source. I hope I could make myself understood, but what we're looking for is to connect all these sources at different levels to provide a very important connection.

15I hope we can do this again. I think this sesson is just a start. It is not the beginning of this week. Today, we also met some difficulties in the process of online communication, but I think this is a very good way for GIC, Geneva and for all the participants. For example, I think 15 minutes to talk about some theme is not enough. I think it's just a start.

This is one of my feelings, thank you!

Lv Pinchang: Thank you Jacques kaufmann for your brief and wonderful summary. Since time is limited, finally I'd like to thank several aspects. First I’d love to thank IAC to guide and support for this seminar. Secondly, thank Chinese institutions, like China Ceramic Association, China Association of Arts and Crafts, especially want to thank the Ceramic Art Museum, Cosco Corporation Zheng Zhi. Thank you all for your strong support to this exhibition from the beginning to the end. The team of the Chinese Art Museum has paid a lot of hard work during this period. Finally, I would like to thank all the artists who participated, all the guests and all our online friends of ceramic art! Thank you! Hope we could see you very soon.

(End of meeting)

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