The 12-week residency at the European Ceramic Workcentre (EKWC) marked a pivotal moment in the development of my artistic practice. Internationally recognised for its commitment to ceramic innovation and material experimentation, EKWC provided the conditions to rethink sculpture through sustained engagement with clay, technical research, and collaborative exchange.


After years of working primarily with polyurethane foam, the residency became an opportunity to investigate ceramics not simply as a new medium, but as a different way of thinking through matter. Rather than replacing previous materials, clay extended my ongoing exploration of tactility, ecological vulnerability, and the porous boundaries between human and more-than-human forms of life.

Throughout the residency I developed new sculptural processes combining clay 3D printing, slip-casting, glazing, mould-making, and flocking. Working alongside EKWC's technical advisors allowed me to experiment with material behaviours across multiple stages of transformation—from digital modelling and liquid clay to firing, surface treatments, and soft tactile finishes. These experiments generated an extensive material archive that now informs the production of new installations.

The residency also deepened my long-term investigation into touch as both an aesthetic language and an ethical proposition. Ceramic bodies emerged as postnatural organisms whose surfaces oscillate between hardness and softness, fragility and resilience, permanence and continual transformation. Through the combination of fired clay, flock fibre, electronics, and responsive technologies, I continue to develop sculptural environments that invite forms of encounter grounded in care, mutual implication, and embodied attention.

The research initiated at EKWC directly feeds into In the Crust of My Feelings, a new body of work in which ceramics become active participants within responsive ecosystems. Rather than functioning as isolated objects, these sculptures operate as material interfaces that negotiate relationships between geological processes, ecological temporalities, technological mediation, and queer understandings of intimacy.

The residency represents an important transition within my practice: from the ephemerality of synthetic materials towards a slower and more enduring material ecology. It established the technical and conceptual foundations for an expanded sculptural vocabulary that continues to shape my installations, moving-image works, and ongoing artistic research.