{"id":351064,"date":"2025-12-16T05:31:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T05:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/351064\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T05:31:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T05:31:16","slug":"pending-eviction-the-kinetic-sculpture-lab-is-struggling-to-find-a-way-forward-lost-coast-outpost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/351064\/","title":{"rendered":"Pending Eviction, the Kinetic Sculpture Lab is Struggling to Find a Way Forward | Lost Coast Outpost"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Some of the lab\u2019s artifacts. Photos by Dezmond Remington.<\/p>\n

The Kinetic Sculpture Lab is a tiny city, filled with miniature alleys and thousands of corners created by the dense thickets of art and tools that suck up all the breathing room. The leviathans within \u2014 a hippo, a horse, a ladybug, many slowly decomposing into ideas \u2014 are the skyscrapers. Stuck anywhere there\u2019s room, they loom.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the managers that keep the place afloat may be the last to keep watch over the metropolis. The Yurok Tribe, the owners of the property that contains the 3,500 square foot Kinetic Sculpture Lab, told the lab staff today that they would not renew their lease next year. All of the things in the lab \u2014 the dozens of kinetic sculptures, their chassis, the mind-boggling amount of tools and supplies that take up almost all of the floor space and stacks to the soaring ceiling \u2014 must be gone by January 1, 2026. It\u2019s taken years to fill. Even on its own, one huge fish took a whole week to install. The short timeframe may make moving impossible.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing told we had to be out in 15 days \u2014 that\u2019s a little bit of an impracticality,\u201d Ken Beidleman, a decades-long volunteer with the lab and the Kinetic Sculpture competitor, told the Outpost. \u201cIt\u2019s like [they\u2019re saying], \u2018Just take the place and blow it up. Go and be done with it.\u2019 Yeah, there\u2019s no fucking way.\u201d<\/p>\n


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A Kinetic hippo. It won the Kinetic Sculpture Race\u2019s Spectator\u2019s Choice award multiple times.<\/p>\n

The lab benefited for years from a generous landlord that only charged $300 a month and let the lab swell. It\u2019s hardly a perfect space; the foundation is weak, and volunteers had to build a low platform in one corner to keep items off of the floor because it floods sometimes. But it was cheap, and since the late \u201890s it was a great space to build the machines and host the public at events like an annual haunted house. People could also go in and check the chaos out for themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Beidleman and Malia Matsumoto, a competitor in the Kinetic Sculpture Race for the past 15 years, said they knew there was a chance they\u2019d have to go, but that poor communication with the tribe inhibited their ability to put together a plan. Beidleman said the tribe had told them as recently as Halloween they weren\u2019t planning on doing anything with the building. Now, they want to renovate, and need the Kinetic stuff gone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really shocked,\u201d Matsumoto said, \u201cWe\u2019ve been asking for communication about renewing our lease, and I think if they were communicating with us if they didn\u2019t want to renew the lease, we\u2019d have a plan in action by now. We would have been implementing something. It\u2019s just shocking.\u201d<\/p>\n


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Beidleman (left) and Matsumoto.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re looking for a space to store everything, even if it\u2019s only temporary. They\u2019ll need a space about the same size and height.\u00a0<\/p>\n

No one\u2019s sure how this will affect next year\u2019s Kinetic Sculpture Race; it\u2019s just too soon to tell, Beidleman said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew the bullet was in the chamber,\u201d Beidleman said. \u201cNow they\u2019ve pulled the trigger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Contacted after business hours, the Yurok Tribe could not be reached for comment. We\u2019ll update this article when they do.<\/p>\n


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Walls of stuff in the lab.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some of the lab\u2019s artifacts. Photos by Dezmond Remington. The Kinetic Sculpture…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[449,458,459,64,63,460,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-351064","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}