MOSAÏNK is a bilingual journal devoted to Chinese ceramics and their mosaics. A journal first, not a storefront. We write for curious readers — not yet experts — and we speak of objects the way others speak of texts: with patience, and in no hurry to conclude. Kilns, glazes, motifs, forms: each piece has its language, and we transcribe it, fragment by fragment.
We believe one can write about the objects of ancient China without condescension, and without leaning on the picturesque. Here, the sinograph is not an ornament: it is a layer of information, accessible to anyone who wants to trace the source. The reader's language remains their own; the Chinese characters appear as scholarly annotations, glossed in pinyin and in English. The reader, here, is our peer, never our student.
We publish with nothing to sell for now. Reading comes first; the rest will follow, at its own pace.
The journal is organized along three axes — three ways of looking at the same object.
Techniques & narratives, 工艺 gōng yì — the materiality of making: kilns, glazes, ashes, flaws, accidents. Ceramics, above all, is a technique of fire.
Grammar of motifs, 纹样 wén yàng — the ornamental language: the morphology of the dragon, the syntax of flowers, the codes of auspicious emblems. To read a motif is to read a sentence.
Lives of objects, 器物 qì wù — use and misunderstanding: what a meiping was actually for, how bowls circulated, what European museums kept — and forgot.
In time, a catalogue will accompany the reading, ordered in four categories: 瓷·石·琉·贝 cí · shí · liú · bèi — ceramic, stone, glass, shell. Our selection is in progress, our partnerships to come. We will favor long-established workshops, transmitted know-how, set apart from mass production — faithful to the editorial that presents them.
A letter, with each publication — with a project, and the time to write it.