Making Dialogue with the World through Ceramics—— JCI Telling China Stories with Ceramics
2022-08-24

As the 2019 academic year begins, JCI welcomed its first batch of 15 overseas freshmen from South Korea, France, Egypt, Vietnam, Russia and Malaysia. A total of 85 international students will arrive later. It is understood that the number ofinternational students enrolled this year is significantly higher than that in previous years.

Yann Colleu (Chinese name Yang Ke), who came all the way from France to study for a PhD in design, told the reporter that she came to Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute as an exchange student for only 3 months two years ago and was attracted by the extensive and profound Chinese ceramic culture. She hopes to spread the excellent ceramic culture to France after finishing her study here in Jingdezhen.

Ceramics is a Chinese culture, a world language, telling Chinese stories. As the only ceramic institution of higher learning in China, JCI has always been adhering to the principle of using porcelain as the medium, and has been shouldering the important and glorious mission of actively integrating into the "belt and Road" Initiative to promote Chinese culture going global and the development of the service industry and local economy, to cultivate high-quality talents, and to promote industrial transformation and upgrading.

In June this year, a crowd gathered at Cambridge's Town Hall, where the first exhibition of the Europe Tour of Jingdezhen Ceramics was held. The 60 pieces of exquisite ceramic works in the exhibition reflect the wisdom and sweat of 60 of the best ceramic masters of the university, and more importantly, they represent the exquisite ceramic technology of China, which attracts the admiration of the British people. During the exhibition, JCI set up a ceramic Art Research Center in Cambridge. The president of JCI Ning Gang and The Mayor of Cambridge Gerri Bird jointly inaugurated the center. At the same time, Mayor Gerri Bird also awarded Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute "Cambridge Art and Design Center & Jingdezhen Ceramic Art and Design Base".

Over the years, in order to explore and implement the Chinese ceramic culture communication project, Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute has held exhibitions of ceramic art works of teachers and students in important places such as Louvre in France, University of Cambridge in The UK, Asian Museum in Greece, Grand Palais in France, and built international ceramic culture exchange center in South Korea and other countries and regions.

In July this year, the school superintendent and research minister of Korea Ceramic Art High School visited JCI and confirmed that they would bring Korean students here to carry out ceramic art practice in mid-to-late October. In order to promote culture going global, JCI has always been adhering to the principle of opening up and actively leading Chinese ceramic education to the world. Over the years, the university has established a talents training system for undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral students. Up to now, it has trained more than 3,000 international students from more than 20 countries. At the same time, the university has established friendly and cooperative relations with more than 30 foreign universities and international ceramic artists associations, and has spread Chinese ceramic culture and art to other countries by exchanging teachers and students with them. In 2018 and 2019, JCI, as the only university of Jiangxi province, undertake the social practices and cultural experience activity sponsored by China Scholarship Council. The activity entitled "perception - ceramics in China " attracted more than 140 Chinese government scholarship students from over 30 countries to take part part in it and so further enhanced their understanding of Chinese culture.

In recent years, JCI has actively constructed platform for academic exchanges, hosted more than 20 international seminars in ceramic engineering, art, culture and education, attracting more than 30 universities and academic institutions such as Tsinghua University, Fudan University, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Wuhan University, National Academy of Fine Arts Limoges, France, Central Saint Martins, the UK, National Academy of l 'aquila, Italy and so on to participate. About 15000 persons participated the seminar who submitted more than 800 papers. In addition, more than 30 cooperation agreements were reached. In addition, last year, Advanced Research Institute of Ceramic Culture was founded, which has set up an international research platform for the history and development of ceramics, theories and techniques of ceramic art, design and creation of ceramic art, promotion and industrialization of ceramics, etc.

In order to have a better dialogue with the world, JCI vigorously promotes the construction of first-class disciplines. At present, the university has 29 provincial and ministerial-level scientific research service platforms such as National Engineering Research Center for Domestic and Building Ceramics and one provincial-level academician workstation, and has formulated and revised more than 130 national and industrial standards. The university actively promotes the "cooperation between government, industry, university and research institute". More than 300 scientific research achievements have been industrialized, which has promoted the transformation and upgrading of China's ceramic industry and its technological progress. Among them, the environment-friendly ceramic water permeable brick program breaks the technical monopoly of foreign countries and is now being applied in provinces such as Jiangxi, Guangdong, Shandong and Guangxi, making contributions to China’s construction of sponge city. The "high temperature ceramic red ink" developed jointly with enterprises has overcome some world's difficult problems. The project of “high-performance ceramic membrane used for water treatment” was awarded the gold medal intheNational Scientist Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition. The program entitled “ the Art and Design Talents Training Model featuring ‘Integration of Three Innovations and Integration of Art, industry and Business’ ” was awarded the second prize of National Teaching Achievement Award. Therefore, it is supported by the National Basic Ability Construction Project of Western and Central China. It is a model university for reform in innovation and entrepreneurship education initiated by the Ministry of Education. A university with typical experience in innovation and entrepreneurship and one of the first pilot universities for transformation of development in Jiangxi.

"In order to speed up the construction of Jingdezhen National Ceramic Culture Inheritance and Innovation Pilot Zone and build a new platform for cultural exchange with foreign countries, JCI will spare no effort to tell China's stories well and make due contribution to the development of Chinese culture." said Ning Gang, a two-term deputy to the National People's Congress.