Bai Ming, artist. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Through this, Bai shows the contradictory nature of ceramics: soft and flexible when molded, and hard but vulnerable after fired in a kiln.

He says this coexistence of opposite characteristics in ceramics best exemplifies the core value of Chinese philosophy.

At the exhibition, he also displays his ink painting series, Cultural Worm Hole.

It is a group of abstract ink-and-water paintings in which he also leaves tea stains and burns small holes in the paper to create a sense of extended space.

The MAAT is also showing four of Bai's porcelain vases in two glass boxes outside the building. Bai says they face the sea and are close to the port where Da Gama and his fleets returned from their initial expedition.

"The display brings Chinese art and the European passers-by closer. Also, it is a meeting of the past and the present," he says.

Contact the writer at linqi@chinadaily.com.cn