Craftsmen make porcelain at an old factory in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province, Sept 20, 2018. [Photo/Xinhua]
Ceramics were the backbone of Jingdezhen for centuries, until a downturn sent profits plummeting. Now, the city is cashing in on its illustrious history.
For centuries, the most coveted Chinese porcelain came from Jingdezhen's workshops, fashioned from clay made smooth by trained hands, fired in kilns and then transported across the globe.
Once, these pieces, notably blueand-white vases and jade-green celadon bowls, graced the British, Persian and French courts. Jingdezhen porcelain was one of China's first globalized commodities and its greatest export.
The Industrial Revolution in the West ended China's supremacy as cheaper, mass-produced porcelain took over the market. The fall of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and wars in the early 20th century broke the artisan culture and lowered its status in global trade.
However, the tradition of craftsmanship never left Jingdezhen, a riverside city in the eastern province of Jiangxi, and it is now being revived from the roots. Studios and workshops have popped up around the city and in the surrounding valleys. Some of the new artisans hope to profit from their skills as China's rising middle-class prompts greater demand for fine porcelain.
For Ryan Labar, a ceramic artist from the United States, coming to Jingdezhen was like "a son returning home".
Three years ago, the 43-year-old set up a studio in Taoxichuan, a renovated production area which has become home to industrial heritage sites, alongside ceramic arts and crafts galleries and studios, plus restaurants, cafes and hotels.
Partnering with a young Chinese businessman, Labar established Lab Artz, a 260-square-meter workshop where he plans to house more artists and offer ceramics classes.
"There is a can-do attitude in China that pushes new ideas into reality," said Labar, who is fond of using traditional methods to make contemporary art.
He said that unlike traditional Chinese pieces that have definite shapes, his artworks are very abstract. Though he has not sold a piece in Jingdezhen, his porcelain is a hit in museums, hotels and galleries in Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangdong province, and Hong Kong, with the most expensive piece priced at 100,000 yuan ($14,800).
In Jingdezhen, artists such as Labar are known as jingpiao, or "floating population".
According to Zhong Zhisheng, the city's Party secretary, 30,000 jingpiao-including 5,000 expats-live in Jingdezhen. The city is home to 6,773 ceramic enterprises and workshops, and about 150,000 people work in the porcelain-related industry, nearly a quarter of the urban population.
"Jingdezhen is still the global ceramic innovation and exchange center," Zhong said. "The dream of revival is always in the hearts of Jingdezhen people."
Artists design ceramic products at Mingfangyuan, a porcelain industry park in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province, Sept 18, 2018. [Photo/Xinhua]
Transition
Though porcelain making has a history of 1,700 years in China, the industry largely remained a manual operation until 1958, when the first mechanized workshop was opened.
Jingdezhen, once an important porcelain export base, saw a drastic decline in profits in the 1990s when inland, State-owned factories lost their edge over their coastal counterparts, which had better equipment, and workshops closed one by one.
Taoxichuan was built on the site of the former Yuzhou Porcelain Factory, one of the closures. Piles of white porcelain plates under the trees next to a grand hotel in Taoxichuan tell the sad story of the once-flourishing State-owned factories.
"This is the last batch of ceramic products made by the Yuzhou Porcelain Factory. Most of them are inferior products," said Wang Songshou, former head of the factory.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, more than 60,000 technicians and workers left and moved to other porcelain-making areas. As a city that relied on the industry, Jingdezhen fell into recession.
As a result, the city authorities faced a tough decision-continue the tradition of handmade porcelain, or change direction and shift production into construction and bathroom ceramics like the workshops in the coastal areas.
As in many other cities, a large number of obsolete factories and traditional alleys in Jingdezhen were demolished in the first 10 years of the century to accommodate real estate development, a cash cow for local governments.
However, in 2011, the administrators realized that high-rise buildings would not bring lasting prosperity.
"Each alley and chimney is a precious resource that records the city's history," said Liu Zili, general manager of the Jingdezhen Ceramic Culture Tourism Group and former deputy head of the city's Porcelain Industry Development Bureau.
"You will never have another Jingdezhen with a millennium-old culture."
The local government invited planning experts from across the globe to design a path for the city's future. That led to abandoned factories being turned into incubators that attracted capital, information, technology and talent.
Taoxichuan, where 22 old workshops of varying structures and kilns were located, was renovated to become an art zone.
More than 450 million yuan has been invested in Taoxichuan since 2013, turning it into an artists' community that is home to more than 5,000 young people.
To protect and enhance its unique handmade porcelain industry, the city opened an industrial park named Mingfangyuan in 2015 to house time-honored workshops, both for production and tourism.
Zhu Xiaoping, an eighth-generation inheritor of traditional porcelain manufacture, was one of the first masters to move to a new villa-like workshop from his humble one in the downtown.
Using a formula inherited from his ancestors, Zhu successfully replicated a tough red glaze that was extremely rare even in the ancient royal kilns.
Its refined noble character rapidly became popular among collectors. Now, porcelain bearing the famous glaze is often given as national gifts to foreign leaders.
"Porcelain flourished when China was strong. It went into decline when China was weak," Zhu said. "Thanks to government support, Jingdezhen is flourishing again."
Meanwhile, the city has extended the value chain to the production of fine and special ceramics that can be used in aerospace and electronics manufacturing. In 2017, the value of the city's porcelain industry reached 37.2 billion yuan, eight times the figure 10 years ago and 263 times that in 1978.
An employee uses 3D printing technology to make a vase at Taoxichuan, a renovated production area in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province, April 8, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]
Future plans
Last year, about 1,200 students, urban elites, foreign tourists and celebrities swarmed to Jinkeng, 8 kilometers to the east of Jingdezhen.
The tranquil village, surrounded by mountains, boasts elements that pique people's curiosity, such as fields and gardens, ancient buildings, archaeological treasures and, of course, porcelain.
In 2014, Huang Wei, a doctoral student of art history from Tsinghua University who was a lecturer at the Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute, discovered 15 porcelain kiln sites in Jinkeng that date to the Song Dynasty (960-1279).
In response, she established an eco-agriculture cooperative that allows local farmers to benefit from the preservation of history, and the Dongjiao (east suburb) School to spread knowledge about heritage protection.
"Development on the basis of culture is the future direction for Jingdezhen, while education is the key," Huang said.
She also provided simulated archaeological excavation and porcelain-repair classes, along with porcelain-making activities, experimental farming and sales of organic produce.
"What we are doing here is trying to integrate porcelain production, study, research and tourism," she said, adding that Jinkeng is the template for Jingdezhen's future development.
Huang's exploration of the integration of heritage protection and community development was lauded by European scholars at a seminar on heritage protection at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, in December.
Liu, who is also a key planner of the development of Jingdezhen's porcelain industry, has high hopes for the commercialization of the city's unique culture.
"The porcelain-making tradition and culture have not been interrupted in the past millennium. This is what porcelain lovers around the world pay tribute to," Liu said.
"Jingdezhen should be an arts center for the world. We don't expect Taoxichuan to become a crowded scenic spot, but a paradise for craftsmen, designers and artists."
Taoxichuan has already seen the potential of cashing in on culture. Its sales revenue was 101 million yuan last year, a 36 percent rise from 2017.
"We have only renovated one factory, and there are nine more to come," Liu said.
In addition to maintaining tradition, Liu said the introduction of modern technology is inevitable.
Yishan Industrial Park, a subsidiary of the Jingdezhen Ceramic Culture Tourism Group, has imported seven German-made automated production lines, which will manufacture ceramic goods based on designs by traditional craftsmen.
"Our future products will be tailored and smartly produced with 3D printing and high-pressure grouting technologies, which can meet the demands of the young generation," Liu said.
The exploration of future growth in Jingdezhen has impressed Takeshi Yasuda, a famous potter from Japan who has lived in the city for 14 years.
"The future of Jingdezhen lies not in exports, but in meeting the rising demand of the Chinese people," the 75-year-old said.
"Jingdezhen is walking its own path in the post-industrial society."
