Feature: Jingdezhen ceramic art culture makes debut at Milan Expo

The ongoing world exposition in Milan is an important chance for the ceramic art culture of Jingdezhen, China's porcelain capital in Jiangxi province, to be better known by the world.

On the occasion of the Jiangxi Day, celebrated at the China Pavilion of Expo Milano 2015 on Saturday, a Jingdezhen ceramic art exhibition, "New China from China," was unveiled here with more than 110 works from different artists, both traditional and contemporary, even from different countries.

The exhibition, promoted by the Jingdezhen city government and the Greenland Group Jiangxi division, will last until Tuesday and has already attracted a number of international visitors, Deputy Mayor of Jingdezhen city Liu Wenhua told Xinhua in an interview on the sidelines of the exhibition opening.

Liu underlined there is still much to be done to highlight the role of the world-famous porcelain city in communication between China and Europe.

Jiangxi, he said, was once an important starting place of maritime silk road and land silk road, and is now an important place for the "belt and road" national strategy. The strategy, launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, urges Chinese provinces to establish closer ties with European regions through a network of infrastructures as well as economic and cultural exchanges.

"We will further advance the integration of Jingdezhen and Italian cities, which has already seen significant cooperation steps in the field of ceramic art... in fact Italy is a country with outstanding ceramic tradition too," Liu told Xinhua.

"We visited Jingdezhen for the first time in 2011 and were deeply fascinated by its over 3,000 years of ceramic tradition. Since then we have boosted friendship ties with China's porcelain capital," said Giuseppe Olmeti, Secretary General of the Italian Association of Ceramics Cities (AiCC).

Olmeti, who is also Secretary General of the European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation Cities of Ceramics (AEuCC), explained to Xinhua that there are a total of 37 cities across Italy recognized by the Italian economic development ministry as cities with prominent ceramic tradition.

One of them, Faenza, in northern Italy, is twinned with Jingdezhen, Olmeti said. Over the past two years the twin cities have carried out exchanges of exhibitions and artists as well as important investment projects in the ceramic field, he added.

The global promotion of Jingdezhen ceramic culture is part of a long-term plan of Jingdezhen city government and Greenland Group to promote Jingdezhen ceramic culture, General Manager of Greenland Group Wu Song told Xinhua.

"That is to say that the political and entrepreneurial world collaborate to spread this important symbol of Chinese culture in the world, which is also the sense of the exhibition's title New China from China," Wu said.

He noted that Jingdezhen was designated in 2014 as part of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Creative Cities Network.

In fact the industrial strength of Jingdezhen does not only rely on traditional ceramic production, but extends to emerging industries including automotive, aerospace, machinery, electronics and pharmaceutical.

On the occasion of the Jiangxi Day, two agreements were signed at the China Pavilion, namely a strategy cooperation between the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) Jiangxi Sub-Council and Italy-China Chamber of Commerce, and another one between CCPIT Jiangxi Sub-Council and Lugano city, Switzerland, in the presence of Jiangxi and Italian authorities. Endit