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 — a hippo, a horse, a ladybug, many slowly decomposing into ideas — are the skyscrapers. Stuck anywhere there’s room, they loom. 

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 — 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 — must be gone by January 1, 2026. It’s taken years to fill. Even on its own, one huge fish took a whole week to install. The short timeframe may make moving impossible. 

“Being told we had to be out in 15 days — that’s a little bit of an impracticality,” Ken Beidleman, a decades-long volunteer with the lab and the Kinetic Sculpture competitor, told the Outpost. “It’s like [they’re saying], ‘Just take the place and blow it up. Go and be done with it.’ Yeah, there’s no fucking way.”

The lab benefited for years from a generous landlord that only charged $300 a month and let the lab swell. It’s 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 ‘90s 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. 

Beidleman and Malia Matsumoto, a competitor in the Kinetic Sculpture Race for the past 15 years, said they knew there was a chance they’d 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’t planning on doing anything with the building. Now, they want to renovate, and need the Kinetic stuff gone. 

“I’m really shocked,” Matsumoto said, “We’ve been asking for communication about renewing our lease, and I think if they were communicating with us if they didn’t want to renew the lease, we’d have a plan in action by now. We would have been implementing something. It’s just shocking.”

They’re looking for a space to store everything, even if it’s only temporary. They’ll need a space about the same size and height. 

No one’s sure how this will affect next year’s Kinetic Sculpture Race; it’s just too soon to tell, Beidleman said. 

“We knew the bullet was in the chamber,” Beidleman said. “Now they’ve pulled the trigger.”

Contacted after business hours, the Yurok Tribe could not be reached for comment. We’ll update this article when they do.