A Planetary History of Porcelain: Energy, Ecology, and Material Literacy in Early Modern China

Descrizione del progetto

Riscrivere la storia globale della produzione di porcellana

La porcellana è un materiale che ha prosperato nella regione di Jingdezhen, nel sud-est della Cina, per oltre 600 anni, nonostante la sua produzione ad alta intensità energetica e il suo impatto ambientale. Sebbene l’elevato consumo di energia possa aver sostenuto la resilienza ecologica locale, alla fine del XIX secolo Jingdezhen perse il suo ruolo di leader nel commercio globale, venendo superata dalle nascenti potenze industriali euro-americane. Sostenuto dal programma di azioni Marie Skłodowska-Curie, il progetto PlanetArt ridisegna la storia globale della porcellana attraverso la lente del consumo energetico; l’iniziativa interpreterà il declino della produzione commerciale di porcellana come una forma di resilienza ecologica. Fondendo la storia dell’arte con la scienza geofisica, PlanetArt consentirà ai professionisti dei musei di raccontare storie in chiave maggiormente critica a livello ecologico, aumentando la consapevolezza delle narrazioni ambientali alla base del patrimonio culturale.

Obiettivo

This project proposes to rewrite the history of porcelain production from a planetary perspective. Titled PlanetArt, the project focuses on the energy regime of Jingdezhen porcelain manufacture in southeast China, where billions of porcelains were produced for global consumers from ca. 1300 to 1900. Porcelain, a human-made material of chemistry, technology, and art, demands energy to produce, releases pollutants and generates waste in production, and remains roughly intact in soil or under water for millennia. As massive production consumed enormous amounts of energy and generated multiple environmental disturbances (e.g. deforestation, air pollution), how did the manufacture continue to thrive over six centuries without causing severe ecological collapse in the region? How did regional inhabitants, transregional (e.g. merchants, porters) and transcultural actants (e.g. non-Han Chinese travellers, Jesuit missionaries) perceive and tackle ecological problems? This project hypothesises that the impact of energy consumption in porcelain production did not diminish but actually enhanced ecological resilience in the Jingdezhen region. The resilience is theorised in the correlation between energy, ecology, and material literacy (i.e. environmental knowledge, technical expertise, and skilled practice in processing materials). Toward the end of the long duration, Jingdezhen porcelain indeed lost its dominant position in global competition, viewed conventionally as a decline of Jingdezhen factories vis-a-vis Euro-American industrial enterprises. PlanetArt proposes a fresh look at the commercial decline as ecological resilience, a form of survival and renewal in favour of ecosystems over anthropogenic infrastructure. Departing from human-centred perspectives, the project aims to tell a story of art informed by geophysical science, to realise the potential of energy as historical method, and to empower museum professionals to effectively communicate ecocritical awareness.