Pleun van Dijk and Jaap Knevel Living Library

Can you describe your research project?

The Living Library (2024–2026) was a transdisciplinary project developed at the Bio Design Lab of the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design. Over the course of two years, it fostered practice-based learning focused on locally sourced raw materials within a 50-kilometre radius around the academy, experimental making, and regenerative modes of production.

The project was a hybrid and continually evolving ecosystem. It brought together a physical archive showing material samples, tools, processes, and workshop artefacts, and a digital archive featuring interactive maps, research, and material documentation. Guided by the principles of compostability, locality, and sustainability, the project followed ecological rhythms of seeding, growing, harvesting, and decay. Students, researchers, and local practitioners collaborated to map regional resources, harvest and transform bio-based materials, and investigate their lifecycles from origin to decomposition.

An open-access publication documents the physical and digital Living Library and brings together a series of essays that explore themes such as the archival qualities of soil or the garden-like cultivation of digital platforms. These essays invite readers to reconsider how knowledge can be grown, shared, and ultimately returned to the ground from which it emerged.

Why have you taken on this project?

Pleun: Following our previous project, the Future Materials Bank at the Jan van Eyck Academie, we were looking for new opportunities to deepen our ideas around biomaterials, archiving, and education. The Living Library was a perfect fit for us. It had a very local approach to the subject matter, while at the same time engaging with the broader ecological crisis and the need to rethink material use within art and design practices.

Jaap: The Bio Design Lab is an active workshop within a school for both undergraduate and graduate students, so it was essential to not only collect knowledge but to also actively create and share it with students. This created a bridge: when artists and designers have the opportunity to learn the skills to work with sustainable materials within their education, they can then apply them throughout their careers. The Living Library positioned those skills not as abstract concepts, but as something that is practiced, tested, and questioned through making.

What research methods do you use?

Pleun: The Living Library used a practice-based methodology that combines field research, mapping, making, and archiving. The research began with exploring the local bioregion by mapping materials, resources, and knowledge networks. This was followed by hands-on experimentation with biomaterials through workshops and field trips, often in collaboration with local experts and makers. Archiving, both physically and digitally, ensures that knowledge remains accessible while continuing to evolve. We turned this methodology into a set of three rules: our ‘Living Library Manifesto’. These rules were not fixed solutions but tools for experimentation, continuously tested and questioned throughout the project.

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Rule 1: Everything must become compost.

All materials used or created within the Living Library must be fully biodegradable and capable of naturally decomposing into organic matter, contributing to soil enrichment without leaving harmful residues.

Rule 2: Everything must be sourced locally.

All materials used in the Living Library must be grown, harvested, or produced within a 50-kilometre radius of the Bio Design Lab at the HfG Karlsruhe. This supports local ecosystems, reduces transport emissions, and strengthens community sustainability.

Rule 3: Everything must be sustainable and prevent harm to the environment.

All materials and processes must prioritise long-term ecological balance. This means minimising environmental impact, using resources efficiently, and ensuring that materials are derived from renewable and natural sources with a focus on regeneration.

In what way did your research affect your artistic practice?

Pleun: This project marked an important step in the development of my practice as a material curator. Building on my experience as curator of the Future Materials Bank, it expanded my skills, knowledge, and understanding of sustainable art and design practices and the importance of bioregional thinking. One of the key insights was not only to design for sustainability, but to question the sustainability of the project itself. It showed the value of working from an idealistic position, using it to challenge decisions and test how far sustainable principles can be applied.

Jaap: In the beginning of the project, I completely submerged myself into mapping the region from my computer. I taught myself new software (QGIS) and started making maps for each field trip using publicly available or crowd-sourced data. As the project progressed, however, and I began to make more trips into the region myself, I discovered how limited that initial approach was and how much ‘data’ I was missing. The key for me was improving my German and being able to listen and understand what people living in the region were telling me. Everyone I met had their own stories, experiences, and knowledge of living materials. With that, my mapping practice and the maps themselves completely changed.

What are you hoping your research will result in, both personally and publicly?

Pleun: We think sharing and democratising knowledge is central to supporting the transition toward more sustainable art practices. Because we knew the project would end after two years, we planned to make everything we did public in some way: the team made an open-access publication and gave away 500 print copies for free, we turned many of the materials we collected during the project into compost together with a local organisation, and the shelf system we built for the archive is now open to be taken over by students.

Jaap: We even translated and published a lot of our research on the local Karlsruher Stadtwiki, where it can be reused by others.

Pleun: On a personal level, the project marks the beginning of a new iteration of our work, building on the knowledge and methods developed over the past two years and before that with the Future Materials Bank. We don’t know the where or how yet, but we know the what: we want to continue our practice-based research into mapping local material knowledge and sustainable artistic practices.