Living Practice or Souvenir? Transformations in Historical Pottery Production in China's South

Giacomo Caruso

This study examines the present-day trends in production, marketing, evaluation and utilization of various pottery products across the Chinese South. Various technical expedients are reducible to two main patterns, in this respect: the beautification of traditional pottery into a novel vernacular product that is particularly attractive for the growing urbanite as a medium of “rapprochement” with nature and the “ancient”; and the reiteration of the craftwork into a museum-bound only object of conspicuous collection and exhibition. Potent media of such patterns are, naturally, the social networks that reiterate a spectacular vision of the crafts, mostly abstracted from their traditional livelihood and uses. Preliminary findings based in ethnoarchaeology will be presented from two distinct traditions that still remain alive: the Jiangshan Dark Pottery in Zhejiang Province and Longchang Sand Ware in Chongqing Municipality.