Cultivating since 1994.
Futurefarmers Design Studio is a network of designers, programmers, engineers, artists and scientists aligned through a common interest in facilitating ideas and actions. We actively collaborate with our clients to create engaging tools for communicating on many scales and media platforms; hand-painted signs, maps, web design, print design, wood carving or a networked game.
Futurefarmers is a group of diverse practitioners aligned through an interest in making work that is relevant to the time and place surrounding us. Founded in 1995, the design studio serves as a platform to support art projects, an artist in residence program and our research interests. We are artists, researchers, designers, architects, scientists and farmers with a common interest in creating frameworks for exchange that catalyze moments of "not knowing".
While we collaborate with scientists and are interested in scientific inquiry, we want to ask questions more openly. Through participatory projects, we create spaces and experiences where the logic of a situation disappears - encounters occur that broaden, rather than narrow perspectives, i.e. reductionist science.
We use various media to create work that has the potential to destabilize logics of "certainty". We deconstruct systems such as food policies, public transportation and rural farming networks to visualize and understand their intrinsic logics. Through this disassembly new narratives emerge that reconfigure the principles that once dominated these systems. Our work often provides a playful entry point and tools for participants to gain insight into deeper fields of inquiry- not only to imagine, but to participate in and initiate change in the places we live.
Futurefarmers work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the New York Museum of Modern Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim, MAXXI in Rome, Italy, New York Hall of Sciences and the Walker Art Center.
Amy Franceschini is an artist and designer who creates work that facilitates encounter, exchange and tactile forms of inquiry by calling into question the "certainties" of a given time or place where a work is situated. An overarching theme in her work is a perceived conflict between "humans" and "nature". Her projects reveal the history and currents of contradictions related to this divide by challenging systems of exchange and the tools we use to "hunt" and "gather". Using this as a starting point, she provides new tools for an audience to gain insight into deeper fields of inquiry; not only to imagine, but also to participate in and initiate change in the places we live.
In 1995, Amy founded Futurefarmers, an international collective of artists, activists, researchers, farmers and architects who work together to propose alternatives to the social, political and environmental organization of space. Founded in 1995, their design studio serves as a platform to support art projects, an artist in residence program and their research interests. Futurefarmers use various media to deconstruct systems to visualize and understand their intrinsic logics; food systems, public transportation, education. Through this disassembly they find new narratives and reconfigurations that form alternatives to the principles that once dominated these systems. They have created temporary schools, books, bus tours, and large-scale exhibitions internationally.
Amy received her BFA from San Francisco State University in Photography and her MFA from Stanford University. She has taught in the visual arts graduate programs at California College of the Arts in San Francisco and Stanford University. Amy is a 2009 Guggenheim fellow and has received grants from the Cultural Innovation Fund, Creative Work Fund and the Graham Foundation.
Michael is an inventor and designer working in many media. He is the analog anchor of the studio. Michael has collaborated with Futurefarmers since 1997. Michael is dedicated to working in the community, Swaine's "Reap What You Sew" Generosity Project involved him pushing an old fashioned ice cream style cart on wheels with a treadle-operated sewing machine on it through the streets of San Francisco. Michael received his B.F.A. from Alfred University in Ceramics and his M.A. in Design from UC Berkeley. Currently, Michael is teaching at the University of Washington, Seattle.
Working in many media Stijn reveals the subtleties of life via film, video and interactive installations. His work embodies a sense of play and sensitivity that reminds us to take a closer look at what surrounds us. He has been seen most recently soaring above the streets of San Francisco in a canoe mounted to the top of the Futurefarmers Volvo.
Lode Vranken has been practicing architecture internationally since 1993. In 1993, he received his masters in a UN Course on Human Settlements + Architectural Philosophy from the KU Leuven, Belgium. He has been teaching since 2005 as a Ned delegate at The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain and from 1993-94 at the Asian Institute for Technolgy in Bangkok, Thailand. Lode co-founded the research coalition, De Bouwerij in Belgium that focuses on social living structures for passive houses, Cradle 2 Cradle buildings and zero
energy construction. His research is focused on new concepts for small, self-sufficient living units; folding buildings, kinetic structures, rolling shelters all with zero carbon dioxide emission.
Anya Kamenskaya is an ag-centric organizer and green building apprentice. Since 2009, she has curated educational events, film screenings and social mixers for the advocacy non-profit, the Greenhorns. She is a member of DIG Cooperative, Inc., a design-build firm focused on decentralized urban water infrastructure. At Futurefarmers she manages the Indigenous Farming Project, a tribal food sovereignty initiative in California's Owens Valley. She received her B.S. in Agroecology from UC Berkeley.
Daniel is an artist, builder and inventor. He has spent many summers orienteering by canoe in Canada where he has gone several months at a time without seeing other humans. Dan received his B.F.A. in Interdisciplinary Sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art and is working towards his M.F.A. (2015) at Carnegie Mellon. Dan collaborated with Futurefarmers on the Reverse Ark at the Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, Maryland, 2009, the People's Roulette for the Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture, 2009 and Soil Kitchen, 2011, a temporary public artwork commissioned by the city of Philadelphia.
Cooley Windsor is the Futurefarmers eternal writer in residence and has graced us with his presence and work since 2009. Many of our projects have emerged from the writings of Cooley Windsor; The Reverse Ark I, The Reverse Ark 2 and This is Not a Trojan Horse. Cooley's seminal work, Visit Me in California has left an everlasting impact on us. Cooley teaches in the MFA Program at the California College of the Arts, and is co-director of the annual Meant to Be Seen Festival at the Eureka Theater in San Francisco. He was one of the founding board members of Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates, an environmental-justice organization focused on the southeast section of San Francisco. He is affiliated with the Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito.
Amy is an artist and designer who creates formats for exchange and production that question the social, cultural and environmental systems that surround her. An overarching theme in her work is a perceived conflict between "humans" and "nature". Her projects reveal the history and currents of contradictions related to this divide by challenging systems of exchange and the tools we use to "hunt" and "gather". Using this as a starting point, she often provides a playful entry point and tools for an audience to gain insight into deeper fields of inquiry; not only to imagine, but to participate in and initiate change in the places we live.
Michael is an inventor and designer working in many media. He is the analog anchor of the studio. Michael has collaborated with Futurefarmers since 1997. Michael is dedicated to working in the community, Swaine's "Reap What You Sew" Generosity Project involved him pushing an old fashioned ice cream style cart on wheels with a treadle-operated sewing machine on it through the streets of San Francisco. Michael received his B.F.A. from Alfred University in Ceramics and his M.A. in Design from UC Berkeley. Currently, Michael is teaching at California College of the Arts and Mills College.
Working in many media Stijn reveals the subtleties of life via film, video and interactive installations. His work embodies a sense of play and sensitivity that reminds us to take a closer look at what surrounds us. He has been seen most recently soaring above the streets of San Francisco in a canoe mounted to the top of the Futurefarmers Volvo.
Lode Vranken has been practicing architecture internationally since 1993. In 1993, he received his masters in a UN Course on Human Settlements + Architectural Philosophy from the KU
