The architecture and research project this exposition is based on, Kudos – Library of Material Relations, becomes an architectural apparatus, following the posthumanist definition of the term by Karen Barad. She describes apparatuses as "material-discursive - - boundary-making practices that are formative of matter and meaning - - [and] are open-ended practices - -." (Barad 2007) The aim of the project is to illustrate possible new, desirable futures which simultaneously reveal underlying harmful habits in the current, western architectural industry, while making and understanding "the situated knowledge" (Haraway 1991) embedded in the project itself. It is a communicational and pedagogical tool inviting all those involved into a process of reconsidering and unlearning. In other words (again Barad's), it is an ethico-onto-epistemological apparatus, intertwining ethics, knowing and being (Barad 2007) which sits in the long continuum of feminist spatial practices combining research and practice in order to reveal and research possible futures (Schalk et al. 2017).
The apparatus of Kudos – Library of Material Relations consists of a temporary, small-scale, movable structure; and the activites taking place there; the process of its making; and eventually its unmaking. The first part of the project took place during 2024, mainly at the Aalto University campus in Espoo, Finland. The process of making architecture was condensed both temporally and spatially, and disconnected from many of the financial, technical and political entanglements and prevailing values mentioned in the introduction. This strategy was first tested in our (architect Maiju Suomi and I) previous project, Alusta pavillion (Suomi & Koivisto 2022a & 2022b, Suomi & Mäkelä 2024, Suomi & Pelsmakers 2025). It allowed for an exploratory, speculative process with room for co-creation and failure (see relations 1-5). It also allowed for me to expand my own agency from the need for narrow specification that architects are oftern restricted by, to other aspects of the process. An educational context was chosen for the workshops, and the first appearance of the project, because in educational environments people are often more open to taking novel approaches.
The aim of Kudos – Library of Material Relations was to rethink the process of making architecture from the point of view of care. What should be done differently by the architect and others if the goal was increasing care and emancipation at every step instead of subjecting the process to the needs of the physical outcome? Rather, the goal was to see architecture as an evolving process and an assemblage of relations, rather than an object frozen in time and space. It was acknowledged that the existence of a human-made structure, regardless of whether it is built for a week or a century, is ephemeral and in constant flux. Therefore, all its matter should be considered as being 'on loan', and its journey to and from the physical embodiment of architecture should be seen as part of the process. Communities and assemblages of human and non-human participants gathered in and around the project were also considered as being part of the apparatus and the ethics and agency of everyone involved was considered. Architecture was seen as a tool for feminist world-making and community-building.
The project, conceptualized by myself (architect-researcher Elina Koivisto), evolved as a co-creative process of making with several human and non-human participants, led by architects Elina Koivisto and Maiju Suomi. The first part of the process, which is discussed in this exposition, can be divided into five main parts, introduced more closely in sections Relations 1-5.
1. Hunting and gathering
2. Growing and caring
3. Learning and failing
4. Exploring and creating
5. Activating and changing
The physical structure has now been disassembled and reassembled once, and will be reassembled in different places to enable different collaborations and reach new audiences. Fungi remain either actively alive or in hibernation. Eventually the live fungi will be relocated to a landscaping project where they may continue their life, accelerating the decomposition of fallen trees and providing habitats for other forms of life. Other materials will be either reused or returned to nature. Human communities have dispersed, carrying with them the material and immaterial implications from this project into new assemblages they may take part in.
This exposition concentrates on the relations built in the making of Kudos – Library of Material Relations. The spatial experience and bodily relations of its visitors will be discussed in further research, after more data has been obtained from its future appearances.
Fig. 1 The pedagagogical dimensions of the apparatus in action through a workshop with children and fungi. Harvey Shaw instructing children in making substrate.
Photo by Elina Koivisto.
Fig. 2 The physical embodiment of Kudos – Library of Material Relations illustrating new, desirable futures and questioning current material habits. Photo by Elina Koivisto.
