Next to her own practice, Pleun is co-creator and former curator of the Future Materials Bank at the Jan van Eyck Academie and digital curator with Jaap Knevel of the Living Library at Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design.Living Library
The Living Library is a transdisciplinary exploration of materials, making, and circular design, unfolding at the Bio Design Lab since April 2024. Over two years, it functions as a temporary, evolving material archive that rethinks artistic and design practice through regionally sourced, biodegradable materials.The project fosters experimental, practice-based learning focused on local raw materials, making techniques, and sustainable production. Through seminars, workshops, and field trips, materials are gathered, developed, activated, and eventually returned to the soil. The process and outcomes are documented in a digital archive and will culminate in an open-access publication.
Julia Ihls (Head of project, Coordinator), Fara Peluso (Material curator), Pleun van Dijk and Jaap Knevel (Digital curators), Lilith Stumpf (Coordination assistant), Luzia Holzbach, Benjamin Kaltenbach (Material curation assistants), Cornelia Herzog, Pauline Kuch, Sebastian Schilbach (Digital curation assistants)
Funded by the Foundation for Innovation in Higher Education Teaching
Digital Living Library
Digital Living Library - Screenshots
Open Access Publication
What started as a two-year research project is now out in the world, a compostable, open-access publication that brings together our materials, methods, and reflections.
This publication is not an endpoint but an invitation to reuse, rethink, and continue.
Photo: Julian Lindner
Mapping the bioregion
Education programme:
Lessons from local knowledge
Education programme: Lessons from local knowledge
Photo: Bio Design Lab / Living Library
Physical Living Library
Material archive and compost area of the physical Living Library.
Photo: Bio Design Lab / Felix Harr
404: Archive Not Found at the ZKM
With the installation 404: Archive Not Found, the Bio Design Lab of the HfG – Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design shares information about the Living Library project (April 2024–March 2026). The focus is on a special material library that decomposes itself.
How can materials and knowledge be collected locally, used, and then returned to the cycle? To answer this question, the Bio Design Lab team is studying biological materials, crafts, and knowledge from the region within 50 kilometers of Karlsruhe. The team is studying materials like wood from the Black Forest and food scraps from the city. They are also looking at old handicraft techniques, stories from the region, the region’s landscape, and its economy. The team aims to gather knowledge and experience over a period of two years. This experiential learning approach will be tested and improved through structured workshops and hands-on outdoor exercises.
404: Archive Not Found shows the project as an installation and also addresses its digital development. The project team’s approach is explained, and materials, digital objects, and the Living Library archive itself are displayed. The installation makes us ask: Can knowledge and materials be stored digitally? What happens to them when the people who care for them are no longer around? Do digital files decompose over time?
Compost is a symbol for the project. It shows: everything changes. Old things disappear, and new things emerge. The archive is always changing. The earth will become the final, permanent storage place.
Installation by: Julia Ihls, Pleun van Dijk, Pauline Kuch
Collaborators: Paul Beißmann, Cornelia Herzog, Luzia Holtzbach, Jaap Knevel, Fara Peluso, Sebastian Schilbach, Lilith Stumpf
The ‘404: Archive Not Found’ installation, part of the ‘Assembling Grounds: Practices of Coexistence’ exhibition at the Centre for Art and Media Karlsruhe (ZKM). Photo: Bio Design Lab / Felix Harr and Felix Grünschloß.