Throughout centuries, artisans have perfected their crafts and influenced aesthetics through molding the mixture of water and clay into various shapes, then firing them into fine objects called ceramics.

The earthy apparatus, glazed with creamy coating, lights up people's houses and lives and reflect their takes on beauty and the relations among man, materials and the Earth.

From Clay to Apparatus, an exhibition now on at the Bund Finance Center in Shanghai, brings together ceramics by dozens of artists from China and Japan. The exhibition investigates the traditions of ceramic making formed through countless pairs of hands that worked with clay. Meanwhile, it shows how artists in the two countries, both with a long history of creating elegant ceramics, usher this tradition into a modern context to renew the techniques and to create new aesthetic feelings.

The exhibition, running through Feb 28 at the Kyoto House, will initiate dialogues between Chinese and Japanese artists and explore ways to realize the spirit of "embodying the rules of nature on apparatuses, delivering emotions through objects".