2025.10
Looking at Chen Bao’s clay pots, one immediately senses a connection to the earliest forms of pottery. His vessels, raw and unadorned, evoke the ancient innovation of earthenware, which sustained and nourished communities for millennia and transformed not only diets but ways of living.
To understand why his pottery feels so resonant today, it helps to consider: what is earthenware, and how have its material qualities shaped human life over centuries?
The Materiality of Earthenware
The qualities of earthenware lie in geology and fire. Iron-rich clays produce the warm red, brown, and buff tones familiar across cultures. When fired at 600 to 1100°C, clay particles fuse enough to create strength without sealing completely, leaving a body filled with microscopic pores. These pores define unglazed pots: they absorb water when soaked, then release it as steam during cooking. Such pots “breathe,” creating a gentle, moist environment that keeps food tender.
Earthenware also has a high thermal mass. It heats slowly, distributes warmth evenly, and retains a steady temperature that encourages flavours to develop gradually. Over time, oils season the clay, producing a natural non-stick surface and a kind of memory, with each meal enriching the vessel for the next. Every pot becomes unique to the household that uses it, and becomes a repository of culinary history.
These material qualities help explain why earthenware has been central to cooking across cultures for millennia. From These remarkable material properties have made clay an essential tool in kitchens around the world. From Moroccan tagines and Japanese donabe to Indian handi, cooks have relied on the porous, slow-heating nature of these vessels. Across regions and cultures, the pot has never been merely a container, but an active participant in the creation and making of a meal.
The Earliest Pottery in East Asia
In East Asia, the earliest pottery dates back to the Late Glacial period, around 20,000 to 12,000 years ago, appearing independently in three main regions: China, Japan, and the Russian Far East. In Jomon-period Japan, hunter-gatherers developed pottery vessels not only for storage but for cooking. Pots enabled boiling fish, rendering fats, and detoxifying plants, processes that expanded diets and improved food safety. Similarly, in Neolithic China, early ceramics were likely used by mobile foragers for cooking (Fig. 1). Earthenware also played a central role in preparing and storing millet, a staple crop that fuelled the rise of early agricultural societies.
In both contexts, pottery was never neutral. It actively shaped survival, diet, and social organisation.
Jomon, Yayoi, and Ryukyu Histories
The Jomon tradition in Japan (c. 14,000 to 300 BCE) represents one of the world’s earliest and longest-lasting ceramic cultures. The earliest vessels, with rounded bases that fit into hearths, were used to storage and cooking. Boiling and simmering foods in these pots expanded diets by softening plants and reducing toxins. Over time, vessel forms diversified: deep pots for cooking, shallow bowls for serving, and jars for storage. These objects were not only practical by also symbolic, featuring prominently in rituals and feasts (Fig. 2). Lipid analysis reveals diets ranging from marine fish to nuts, emphasising pottery’s centrality to be subsistence and ceremony.
With the spread of agriculture from China and Korea, pottery evolved further. In the Yayoi period (c. 900 BCE to 250 CE), vessels became thinner, harder, and more durable, fired at higher temperatures and made with greater precision (Fig. 3). Forms became specialised: urns for boiling, jars for storage, stemmed bowls for serving. In agricultural communities, pots were more than cooking tools. They enabled food storage and distribution, supporting new systems of settlement and social organisation.
The influence of Jomon and Yayoi traditions extended into surrounding regions, including the Ryukyu Islands (via southern Kyushu), where my research lies. There, imported ideas merged with local resources to produce distinctive ceramic practices. While some pottery shares design similarities across islands, their use varied, reflecting diets shaped by local environments. Demonstrating how pottery was never static, as it travelled, adapted, and acquired local inflections.
The Ryukyu Islands, located southwest of mainland Japan, form an archipelago that includes Northern Ryukyu (Amami Islands), and Southern Ryukyu (Okinawa and Yaeyama Islands). These islands have a rich history of pottery production, influenced by both indigenous traditions and external trade and influences.
Kamuiyaki, originating from Tokunoshima in the Northern Ryukyu, is a type of grey stoneware produced between the 11th and 14th CE. Influenced by Korean Sue ware, it spread south through the archipelago and beyond, also reaching mainland Japan and China. Kilns on Tokunoshima are among the earliest known in the region, producing jars, pots, bowls, and jugs, primarily for food preparation. While adapted from foreign forms, such as shapes influenced by Chinese ceramics and stone pots, it was reshaped to meet local needs.
Panari ware, which bears a strong resemblance to the material qualities of Chen Bao’s pottery (Fig. 4), was produced mainly on Aragusuku Island in the southern Yayeyama group from around the 17th CE. Characterised by hand-formed shapes and clay tempered with ground shellfish shells, Panari remained relatively localised (unlike Kamuiyaki) but served both everyday and ritual purposes.
Whilst on Yonaguni Island, at the southwestern edge of the archipelago, clay vessels were made sun-dried and fired over straw fires. Fragile and ephemeral, these pots were said to last only a few days of rice boiling before breaking.
The relationship between food and clay has always been strong, as has human tendency to adapt traditions to local diets and resources. The Ryukyu Islands demonstrate this adaptability, as each island developed its own pottery culture while integrating influences from neighbouring states. Food has always been a staple of human survival, but pottery is equally essential in nourishing that food. History shows that the culture of cooking, and our relationship with clay, have endured across centuries. We still rely on clay and pots for daily needs, and it is remarkable how habits persist in much the same way as before.
Across histories, pottery has functioned not only as a practical tool but also as a cultural marker. Styles reveal trade networks, social hierarchies, and ritual practices. A pot’s form and decoration can signal identity as much as utility. Clay embodies both continuity and change, anchoring daily life while reflecting broader cultural dynamics.
Function as Continuity: Chen Bao’s Vessels in Practice
Chen Bao’s work resonates with these histories. His pots, sometimes unglazed and sometimes lightly glazed with bare bases for fire, reflect an interest in older methods of making, not as replication but as continuation of a lineage where vessels shape how we eat and live.
Chen’s dual role as potter and practitioner makes this especially clear. Working in a clay pot restaurant in Japan, he tests his vessels daily in the heat of kitchens. They are not pieces for display but living tools, exposed to fire, food, and time. For him, the pot is not a backdrop to cooking; it participates in the process, becoming part of the dish itself.
Anyone who has cooked with a clay pot knows that each vessel has its own temperament. Some take longer to heat, some retain steam differently, some stain with use and develop a darker, seasoned surface. A new pot feels slightly raw at first, but over weeks oils and flavours seep into its pores, subtly changing how it cooks. This intimacy between maker, cook, vessel, and food is precisely what Chen Bao cultivates in his practice.
In today’s landscape of industrial cookware, Chen Bao’s pottery stands out. Porous and tactile, they actively shape how food cooks and how flavours develop, recalling the original purpose of prehistoric earthenware. They signal a return to material honesty and functional traditions.
Just as past communities integrated foreign ideas into local clay traditions, Chen Bao adapts historical techniques for contemporary kitchens. His work becomes a bridge, carrying the spirit of continuity while responding to the needs of today’s cooks. His pots remind us that cooking has always been a collaboration between clay, fire, and human creativity. A vessel that breathes, seasons, and remembers meals is more than a tool; it is a companion in the act of nourishment.
Clay, in Chen Bao’s practice, resists the disposability of modern culture. In an era of fast cooking and faster consumption, his vessels insist on slowness. They require soaking, gentle heating, and patience. They reward attention and care. In this way, his work is not only about preserving traditions; it asks how we might reimagine our relationship with food, material, and time itself.