Rood, Wit/Blauw is an international project involving an intensive collaboration between the artists Yang Zhilin and Wu Weishan from the People's Republic of China and the Dutch artists Roberto Ruggiu and Jan van den Dobbelsteen. In 1996, the artists worked for three months in the Europees Keramisch Werkcentrum in Den Bosch and one week in De Fabriek in Eindhoven. In July and August 1997, the artists spent two months working in the Jun Pottery Yixing Ceramics in Ding Shan, 200 kilometres to the south of Nanjing. With its projects, Arctic Foundation aims at expediting processes of mental interactions.
The whole project was concluded with an exhibition in MU, featuring ceramic objects, installations, videotapes, photographs and a CD. Yang Zhilin and Wu Weishan translated old Chinese symbols into topical issues. Yang juxtaposed a cube with a barely visible little teapot fired in it, and a spherical shape. The spherical shape is suggestive of a skull. Water as a source of life and a link between generations and civilisations plays an important role in the work of Wu. In Jan van den Dobbelsteen's installation, a ceramic bridge is interrelated to the Great Wall in China; Roberto Ruggiu links up with Chinese traditions by creating two large vases to mark an entrance. He made the two vases with the assistance of a Chinese labourer called Zhang. Symbolising the worldwide gateway between China and the Netherlands, one of the twin vases is now in the Porcelain Museum in Yixing, the other one will be placed in the entrance hall of the town hall of Eindhoven.

Yang Zhilin / Wu Weishan / Roberto Ruggiu / Jan van den Dobbelsteen