In 2026, Ralf Gloudemans worked as Young Designer in Residence at Cor Unum in ’s-Hertogenbosch. During this residency, Ralf investigated how his digital sculptural language could enter into dialogue with the ceramic knowledge, craft expertise, technical precision and collective making processes of Cor Unum.

The residency was made possible by Stichting Vrienden van het Keramisch Ambacht, together with the donors who supported the crowdfunding campaign on voordekunst. Their support created the space for Ralf to work within the Cor Unum workshop, surrounded by specialist equipment, material knowledge and the expertise of ceramic makers.

Ralf’s practice starts from a digital way of making form. In VR and 3D software, he builds objects as sculptural gestures: forms that move between ornament, body, architecture and fictional artefact. Within Cor Unum, this digital origin remained important, but the central question shifted. Not only: how can a digital form become ceramic? But more specifically: what happens when such a form enters an environment where material, craft, moulds, glazes, reproduction and production all have their own voice?

The residency became an investigation into collaboration. Not only between designer and institute, but also between digital intuition and ceramic knowledge, between form and technique, between an individual signature and the force of a workshop. Cor Unum brought Ralf’s work into contact with a world in which each object passes through multiple hands, processes and decisions. This affects the form, but also the way an object begins to carry meaning.

During the working period, several directions developed alongside one another. Some objects connect to Ralf’s existing sculptural language and explore how this language can adapt to moulds, casting slip, glazes and finishing in the context of Cor Unum. Other works emerged from the possibilities and limitations of ceramic 3D printing. In these objects, it becomes visible how a digitally guided process remains deeply dependent on material behaviour: clay sinks, pulls, dries, deforms, breaks or surprises. These moments are not only technical obstacles, but become part of the character of the work.

The strength of the residency lies in this exchange. Cor Unum is not a neutral production location, but an environment with its own history, expertise and way of thinking. The knowledge of the people in the workshop, the conversations about feasibility, the technical limitations and the possibilities of ceramic production sharpened the work.