Anne Helen Mydland
Assistant Professor in Ceramics
Bergen National Academy of the Arts
Made in China, Been in Norway
Introduction
’Made in China been in Norway’ is an art project in two parts:
Phase 1 is a site-specific art project that was carried out in China in summer 2004.
Phase 2 is a continuation of phase 1 in which the overriding goal is to create a manuscript for a publication in which the work I did in China will be the common point of reference for a collection of articles by a selection of writers. The aim is to cast light on ways of interpreting the piece ’Made in China been in Norway’.
Phase 1
“Made in China, been in Norway”
The project was the result of an invitation to take part in ’The Millennium Celebration of Porcelain in China’, a celebration of one thousand years of porcelain production in China. I was invited to exhibit and to be an artist in residence at the Sanbao Ceramic Art Institute in Jingdezhen, the city which has been the centre for porcelain production in China for a thousand years.
Porcelain
China is the only place in the world where the basis for porcelain clay occurs naturally among native rock types. Porcelain’s unique quality gave it an air of exclusivity, and it was a sensation when it arrived in Europe via the Silk Road in the 13th century. Europeans attempted for several centuries to copy this ’white gold’, and they did not succeed in producing porcelain in Europe until 1708. However, imports of Chinese porcelain have never diminished. Thus, Chinese porcelain has been closely linked to European cultural history and everyday life since the 13th century. It has gradually moved from the emperor’s table to become a regular feature of ordinary homes.
My grandmother drank from china
China is a large and old civilisation. The Middle Kingdom, dynasties, Maoism and now? Communist market liberalism? China has become an industrial giant, a production facility for the world’s big companies. As a member of WTO, it is a player that has to be reckoned with on the global stage. China is undergoing a process of change – from being a closed society to becoming a participant.
However, China is still different and exotic. The Orient with its Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Gate of Heavenly Peace, a fairytale country.
For me, China was and is veiled in myth, an alien place. Yet at the same time, it has this common denominator: porcelain.
I use Chinese porcelain daily. My grandmother does too, as did my great grandmother; the family photos tell us this. On the table in front of smiling Christmas guests, in black and white photos, the china service. My fairly ordinary family history linked together by this ’white gold’ from the other side of the world.
The object
’Each type of material and object familiar to us from our surroundings and put into the artist context, carry their history and function with them. History and function then becomes a part of the work.’
Grethe Grathwol. 1999
The object as storyteller has been a recurring feature of my work for several years.
I have focused in particular on figurines/porcelain figures and have used readymades (china in particular) used in everyday settings. Porcelain is closely linked to the family’s stories through its use at family gatherings. Meals are the family’s ’gathering rites’ and the porcelain the objects of the ’rites’. These objects become souvenirs and relics [1] for the family’s collective and individual memories, linking together and creating continuity in the story.
Shards
Rhopography
(from rhopos, trivial objects, small wares, trifles) is the description of those things which lack importance, the unassuming material base of life that ‘importance constantly overlooks’.
Norman Bryson, ‘Looking at the overlooked’ 1995
The brittleness of porcelain is one of the material’s key properties. A shard can represent something that has been irrevocably destroyed, the transition from object to refuse. The shard, the fragment, is also seen as a reference, a link that refers to a previous whole, to a memory. The shard is a souvenir, a relic.
During the Oslo International Ceramic Symposium in 2003, the head of the Sanbao Ceramic Art Institute, Li Jiansheng, gave a lecture in which he pointed out that China’s soil more or less consists of porcelain shards. The earth is full of a thousand years worth of porcelain production. Shards from Sung and Ming intermingle with present day waste.
I took 200 porcelain shards [2] with me back to China, shards of porcelain used here in Norway. The everyday china produced for export to the West.
All the shards were re-branded with the text ’Made in China, been in Norway 2004’ in English and Chinese in a visual style similar to that used in industrial marking.
By re-contextualising the shards, their narrative properties were activated; the history that accompanied them from Norway and stories about the objects, tradition and their dispersal.
China; return
I did not travel by caravan but on a plane to China that followed the Silk Road.
The itinerary in China: Hong Kong, Macao, Guangzhou (Canton), Jingdezhen, Shanghai and Beijing were chosen because of their importance to the porcelain trade, either as export ports or production sites.
The actions are documented in the form of photographs and a logbook consisting of maps, supplementary text, history and observations made in situ.
The following series of images shows some of the different places and approaches, while the documentation method remains the same.
Phase 2
In phase 2, the overriding goal is to develop a manuscript based on the work done in China.
The project is of an interdisciplinary nature, which allows for a broader discussion than if it were exclusively within the ceramics tradition or in the field of art in general. I wish to explore this aspect by inviting five writers from different disciplines to contribute essays that can cast light on some of the aspects that are implicit in ’Made in China, been in Norway’.
I want ’Made in China, been in Norway’ to form the frame of reference/common denominator for the texts, thus creating a certain tension between the text and the action/piece. I do not want the texts to be directly about my project, but rather to outline areas and interpretations in the light of which it can be viewed.
Globalisation
Globalisation is a concept and a phenomenon that has a prominent place in current political debate. It can, at the same time, be said to be just as vague and malleable as the concept of art, and it may therefore seem to be very elusive. Even though it is difficult to provide a good definition, it is nonetheless relevant to examine the globalisation process in the art context. Globalisation is best understood as a multifaceted phenomenon whose core elements [3] are economic, political and thereby cultural integration on a global scale.
Globalisation is the establishment of ”the global village”, the world brought together in time and place. Syncretisation, hybridisation, homogenisation, and heterogenisation of cultures, societies and identities follow as an integral part of the process. This is obviously a simplification, but in my opinion it is indisputable that it is significant for contemporary art today. We are right in the middle of these processes and I believe that my project can contribute to increased focus on and understanding of these processes, both in contemporary art in general and in my field in particular.
For me, it is central that art is not just an autonomous field but that it also interacts with society at different levels – as commentary, reflection, introspection, or relationally – and that through a work of art it is possible to comment on and raise issues relating to highly topical themes. I think it is relevant to mention the latest Dokumenta 11, which dealt with precisely some of these themes. [4]
As a means of artistic expression, ceramics is still defined to a great extent within the framework of craft. In recent years, this understanding has been both expanded and challenged.
In my artistic practice I explore these boundaries by transferring and combining methods and strategies. The tradition and history of porcelain is central to this work, not as a technique or style, but as a conceptual point of departure and material in itself. The elements in the work, the material’s tradition and site-specific strategies, are already familiar areas to practitioners of the individual disciplines (craft artists/visual artists), but by combining specialised knowledge with the strategies and field of visual art, I explore the boundaries and potential of the different fields. I believe this publication can be an important tool in creating new understandings in the field of ceramics, but also for how this field can develop in a broader interdisciplinary direction.
By involving writers from fields other than art, it can also contribute to a widening of the debate on art and to the broader debate on political and social issues.
This will be the basis for the text material I will collect for the publication. They might be texts that have already been published or articles in essay form specially written for this purpose. In that connection, I wish to invite approximately five writers. The list below is meant as a starting point and proposal for possible contributors and possible topics. I strongly wish to find Chinese writers who would be willing to contribute.
