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Accepted manuscript

Living Material Archives. Epistemic Infrastructures under Conditions of Transformation, Decay and Finitude

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2026

Julia Ihls*
Affiliation:
Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design Technical University of Munich
Jaap Knevel
Affiliation:
Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design Fontys Academy of the Arts
Fara Peluso
Affiliation:
Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design University of Arts Linz – Fashion & Technology
Pleun van Dijk
Affiliation:
Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design
*
*Author for correspondence. Email: jihls@hfg-karlsruhe.de
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Abstract

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Biodesign education increasingly engages with living and bio-based materials whose temporal, relational, and ecological properties challenge established modes of material archiving and teaching. Conventional material libraries, oriented toward stabilisation and preservation, are poorly equipped to address growth, contamination, and decay as constitutive material processes. This paper proposes a reconceptualisation of material libraries as living material archives: dynamic epistemic infrastructures that foreground transformation, care, and finitude rather than control. Drawing on feminist technoscience and material culture studies, the paper develops three conceptual lenses – cross-contamination, sympoiesis, and the website as garden – to examine how material and digital archives can support situated knowledge production in biodesign education. These perspectives are grounded in a detailed case study of the Living Library, a hybrid analogue–digital teaching project developed at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design. The paper demonstrates how temporary, process-oriented archives can operationalise ecological responsibility, disciplinary openness, and regenerative learning practices.

Information

Type
Full Paper: Biodesign Conference
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press