Chinese Porcelain Across the Seas

Documentary Film | 2026
Presented at: China Maritime Museum, Shanghai (July 2026)
Produced by: MIMAI × Artability Art, London

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Chinese Porcelain Across the Seas traces the transnational histories of Chinese export porcelain through the objects themselves—following their movement across maritime trade routes, collections, and sites of cultural exchange.

Filmed across major European institutions—including the British Museum, Bonhams, and Burghley House in England, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin, and the Dresden State Art Collections—the documentary brings together historical objects, collections, and expert perspectives to uncover the networks, human agency, and systems of exchange behind Chinese export porcelain. Through close attention to design, production, and commission, the film explores how these objects emerged at the intersection of different visual traditions, markets, and systems of knowledge—shaped not simply in China or in their countries of destination, but through the continuous negotiation between them.

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For MIMAI, the project frames Chinese export porcelain as an object of the in-between: a material form through which complex transnational histories become tangible. Moving beyond the idea of cultural influence as a linear, one-way trajectory, the documentary examines how objects are transformed through circulation, and how aesthetics, cultures, and imaginaries are mutually reshaped through processes of exchange and translation.