“Escuchar con las manos” sensibilidades energéticas entre la medicina tradicional china y las prácticas cerámicas

Abstract

This research-creation project is an interdisciplinary exploration between traditional Chinese medicine, particularly through traditional Chinese massage and its focus on vital energy, and ceramic technique as an artistic and sensitive language. The proposal arises from the need to strengthen interdisciplinary processes in contemporary art studies, integrating ancestral knowledge of the body with material art practices, in a dialogue where the sensitive, the energetic, and the creative intertwine. The conceptual basis of this research stems from the idea that the human body is not only a physical vehicle but also a field of living energy in constant movement. Through Chinese massage, it is possible to perceive, read, and accompany the flow of that vital energy in people’s bodies. This sensory and energetic experience becomes a source of knowledge that transcends words and can be translated and channeled through the ceramic act. Ceramics, as an art, is a material expression that transforms through direct contact with the hands; clay can capture and manifest the impression left by the shaping person. Thus, the tactility of clay becomes a bridge between the energetic experience and artistic expression, in a process where body, gesture, intention, and energy are embodied in shapes. Clay can be conductor that embodies emotional, spiritual, and physical trajectories. This creative process is not solely individual. The people participating in the project actively integrate themselves into the development of the work, contributing their energy, bodily history, and sensitivity. The resulting work does not seek to represent only an aesthetic, but also to materialize the traces of the well-being or discomfort experienced by each body, becoming a form of sensitive testimony. Through this combination of art and traditional Chinese medicine, it’s proposed a conscious experience, a space where vulnerabilities detected in the body can find forms of expression, be recognized and transformed, and where the possibility of generating individual and collective restoration processes opens up, in which ceramics ceases to be a decorative object and becomes a medium of listening, memory, and inner alchemy. This research recognizes art as a living tool of connection, dialogue, and integration of knowledge. By linking disciplines that have historically been considered and separated, such as traditional medicine and visual arts as opposing disciplines, a new field of exploration emerges where artistic creation is not alien to the body, but deeply connected to its energy, its memory, and its potential for healing.