Bai Ming
Professor and Chair of the Department of Ceramic Design, Tsinghua Academy of Arts & Design
Director of the Ceramic Art Committee of the China Artists Association
After the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, how should online teaching be conducted? What can art do and what is art for in this special period? With these questions in mind, our special correspondent Gao Zongshuai interviewed Prof. Bai Ming, who shared his perceptions and thoughts.
Disrupted Schedule
Q：What are the impacts of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic on your work and life?
Bai Ming: My original schedule has been completely disrupted. I had planned to visit Japan after the Spring Festival and then return to Jingdezhen to guide my students' graduation projects. In early April, the on-site review of the 12th International Ceramics Competition Mino, Japan was changed to online review, which saved human and material power but didn't have the same effect as the on-site review. Teaching has also gone online.
List of the Judges of the 12th International Ceramics Competition Mino, Japan
Q: I've found that you held a solo exhibition at Keramis-Centre de la Céramique, Belgium——"Vibrations of the Earth". What impact does the COVID-19 pandemic overseas have on your exhibition?
Bai Ming: "Vibrations of the Earth" opened on November 16, 2019 and ended on March 16 this year. The exhibits were removed and packed on March 17. The next day, entry and exit were restricted in France and Belgium, and museums were also closed down. It was lucky that my exhibition ended just before that date. But my solo exhibition scheduled to be held subsequently in Nice France was postponed. The Museum of Asian Arts in Nice is a public museum collecting artworks from China, India, Japan and Southeast Asia. The exhibition scheduled to open this April has to be postponed due to the pandemic.
The Museum of Asian Arts in Nice, France
Bai Ming's exchange with Chen Jie, Curator of the Museum of Asian Arts in Nice, France
Catalyzing Teaching
Q: Teaching has now gone online due to the pandemic. How do you feel about it? Are you adapted to this form of teaching?
Bai Ming: I'm used to face-to-face teaching without experience or psychological preparations for online teaching. I feel great pressure. As teachers of liberal arts, we are accustomed to adjusting our teaching methods according to the reactions, facial expressions and manual dexterity of students, but seldom do it in face of the screen and data. Demonstration and instruction are very easy on site, but undoubtedly online teaching poses more challenges. Also, students' feedback is not apparent, as verbal description of arts tends to be vague.
Additionally, student training in our department stresses that students should know the whole process of ceramic creation. However, the pandemic makes it difficult and many courses requiring hands-on practices are affected seriously. As our full courses mostly rely on laboratories, the Department of Ceramic Design is probably one of the departments hardest hit in the Academy. On this point, we can only make as many changes as possible to adapt to our teaching needs.
Prof. Bai Ming's online teaching during the pandemic
I am now teaching the graduation project course, and soon I will teach "Modern Ceramic Art Theory and Creation Practice". I have adjusted the PPT for online teaching of the four courses to achieve better results. The works are grouped in one picture according to their style, skill and inheritance. This facilitates the comparison between the pictures in online teaching. In addition to explanations, the concept ambiguity caused by repeatedly turning pages back and forth can be addressed.
In addition, I have grouped graduate students and undergraduate students and distributed good articles, books and some internationally important exhibition information and works selected from many information streams to the groups for their discussion after class.
PPT of the course "Modern Ceramic Theory and Practice"
Q: To cope with online teaching, what changes have occurred in the practices of the Department of Ceramic Design?
Bai Ming: In practice, such as throwing, teachers gave instructions on site in the past, but now, as students are at home, they have different conditions, so we have different requirements. Students with financial resources and adequate space can buy a withdrawal machine and do it themselves. Students without such conditions can use methods like mud strip spiraling. This brings a problem. Though molding can be done with another method, the craft cannot be replaced. Therefore, our practices during the pandemic are not focused on training students' molding skills, because we are training talents of ceramic arts versed in molding aesthetics instead of skilled workers. We try to enhance the students' perception and understanding of aesthetics and basics of plastic arts through basic practices.
Students of the Department of Ceramic Design taking Prof. Qiu Gengyu's course "Basics of Molding" online at home during the pandemic
Drifting status
Q: In your updates during the pandemic, you've mentioned that "beautiful scenery can keep away reality", and that "everything, as usual, seems to be kept from reality but turns out to be an illusion." How do you look at this contradictory and drifting status?
Bai Ming: Humans are bundles of contradictions. We're not at the front line, and the pandemic seems far away from us, but it is actually close by. So I'm indeed always in this drifting status. On one hand, I'm in the pandemic, unable to withdraw from the rampant pandemic worldwide. It is impossible for us to care about our own lives only. I've never felt so strongly that all human beings constitute one community of shared future. On the other hand, as an artist, I have the advantage of creation, able to release, express and vent these feelings in observations and creations. I like to observe things around me from some minor angles. These constitute my "visual diary".
Bai Ming's creations at home during the pandemic
Q：During the pandemic, you've created many large-scale ink and wash paintings, such as "Map: Landscape in the Atmosphere", "The Beginning of the World: Classic of Mountains and Seas", and "Cocoon Image: Map".
Bai Ming: The creation on these themes had already started before the outbreak of the pandemic. However, during the pandemic, I have more time and can therefore draw larger paintings, which enhances these perceptions. The tremendous impact of the pandemic on my feelings is also reflected in my works. With sorrows, puzzles, confusion and helplessness, my works have a special texture of chaos.
The Beginning of the World: Big Totems (partial), 366cm long, 2020
Sometimes I seem to think about very big macroscopic problems, but they are essentially about the human nature and are topics of life. In my daily life, the things I see are often microscopic. Therefore, I always attempt to observe from a different perspective in the hope of seeing some other things. I try to start from my simple personal experience to seek some formal commonalities. The change from microscopic observations to macroscopic examinations are not a shift but also a drift.
A Bird's Eye View of Xinjiang, photography by Bai Ming
"The Beginning of the World: Classic of Mountains and Seas" (partial), 2020
Impermanence of Life and Cherishing of Life
Q：During the pandemic, "investigation into the nature of things at home" has also become part of your life. Apricot blossoms outside the window, gold-in-jade bamboos, and old ink-stones and dishware beside you, all these things seem to have new vitality. Why are you enthused in such "investigations"?
Bai Ming: Investigation into the nature of things is in fact about life per se. During the pandemic, the numbers of people infected and killed by the virus are reported every day. Behind each number are lives and families. I've never so vividly felt how commonplace bereavement and separation are. During this period, I often question my sense of trust and security about my own life. Life is impermanent and also powerless. For Wuhan, I cannot imagine how over 10 million people shut up in the city spend their days and nights under the threat of the virus. We often say empathy, but at this time we are disqualified to say it. People in the city of Wuhan truly live in the fear about whether they can "cherish life" the next day, while we can but feel "cherishing life".
"The Beginning of the World: Classic of Mountains and Seas" (partial), 2020
A Wall of Buddhist Scripture Rolls (partial), 366cm long, 2020
Q：You've mentioned in your article that "the significance of art is more often found in daily life", and "painting is my lifelong career, an endless dialogue between my heart and soul." How do you understand the relationship between art and important events, and between daily life and human consciousness?
Bai Ming: I stress the significance of daily life, mainly because ceramic art is from life and for life. Its relationship with life is mutual tempering and appreciation. Also, in the early period of disaster, like ordinary people, artists are often helpless. On the front-line of saving lives, art is often powerless, as it can neither diagnose nor manufacture drugs. However, in people's quotidian life, art is very meaningful, because it either records memory or moves hearts, and is beautiful, good. Nevertheless, each artist should objectively record, sincerely thinks, gives conscientious expressions, and honestly questions life and ourselves. All questioning should be premised on the respect for life. To turn disasters into mutual illuminations of civilizations and progress and let them blend into our blood is also an expression of our confidence in our own civilization.
Source: Department of Ceramic Design
Reporter: Gao Zongshuai
Editor: Zhao Ruohan
