AN exhibition on blue and white porcelain— one of the highlights of this year’s Shanghai Science Festival — opened yesterday.

Held at Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, the exhibition is called “Blue and White: The Glory of the Silk Road.”

It has eight sections, including the manufacturing process, history, how the industry the spread, and the setting up of an international exchange.

The exhibition is co-organized by the city’s science and technology commission and Jingdezhen government of Jiangxi Province, known as the nation’s “porcelain capital” because of its high-quality porcelain production from ancient times.

The exhibition runs until June 18, and all the instructions on boards and brochures are in Chinese and English.

Visitors can learn about the development of the special porcelain through more than 50 artifacts dating back to the Tang Dynasty (618-907), as well as exploring, via augmented reality techniques, routes and ports used to export the porcelain.

Shanghai Institute of Ceramics of Chinese Academy of Sciences tells how the techniques of ancient Chinese ceramics were almost lost by the 1920s.

A special screen, featuring profiles of more than 4,000 white and blue porcelain artifacts from museums. including the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Palace Museum and Shanghai Museum. allows visitors to use technology to better understand the story of porcelain.

Visitors can have a closer look at artifacts by tapping the screen, or can download pictures and information of by scanning QR codes.

Starting on Sunday, the museum will provide four education workshops at weekends and national holidays. Visitors can try their hand at painting blue and white motifs or even making some pottery. Reservations for the workshops can be made via the museum’s WeChat account “sstm01.”