Dutch Design x taoxichuan

An initiative by Kranen/Gille

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Design is not just about objects. At its best, it is a language that connects people across borders, traditions, and time.

Over the past two years, Kranen/Gille has been building that kind of connection in Jingdezhen, the porcelain capital of the world, through a growing collaboration with the Taoxichuan Art Center. What began as an invitation to experiment with centuries-old ceramic techniques has grown into a residency program, a cultural exchange, and a series of projects that ask what happens when two creative traditions start listening to each other.

For the second residency, Jos Kranen curated and selected three Dutch designers, Remy van Zandbergen, Inge Simonis, and Lenneke Wispelwey, to work alongside Jingdezhen's craftspeople. Not to impose, but to listen. The results are now on their way to the Netherlands.

While in China, Jos was also invited to give a guest lecture at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou, speaking to graduating students about the step from education into practice. Design, at its core, is about asking the right questions. The students were a good reminder of that.

In Beijing, the Netherlands Embassy asked what happens when an institution dares to be more human. The answer became Embassy of the Future, built around one of the most Dutch of rituals. Coffee is never just coffee. A bespoke coffee set developed with WL Ceramics will soon be in daily use at the embassy, a small gesture that speaks in a surprisingly human voice.

Meanwhile, Night on Earth from the Elements collection for Monasch was selected for the exhibition Matter: Energy Bound at the Taoxichuan Art Gallery, exploring the dialogue between maker and machine through an 80-year-old mechanical tufting machine.

From porcelain workshops to embassy halls, the thread running through all of it is the same. Design as connection. Tradition meeting curiosity. People meeting purpose.