From Site to Space

Abstract

Abstract: This article studies the factors involved in transforming raw resources such as firewood and clay into fine ceramics suitable for global circulation, in early modern Europe and China. It challenges the idea that a single site should be seen as a key to understanding that transformation. Visual depictions of the production of ceramics provide insight into this understanding of ceramics production processes associated with a single site of manufacture. Instead, this article uses the concept of the chaîne opératoire to cast the net far beyond the individual production site. It suggests that we must connect the production processes amassed in one site with the identification, extraction, transport, and delivery of natural resources from many others. Drawing on examples from Delft and Jingdezhen, it suggests that the manufacturing transformation processes began in far-flung but connected locations and were only completed at the manufacturing site.