Gallery 16 is excited to announce a major exhibition/archaeological look at the important Bay Area artist collective Futurefarmers. This exhibition will present objects spanning nearly 20 years of art making.
The human brain is wired for categorizing, it’s an essential trait, but one that makes following the myriad of artistic, design, and social engagements of Futurefarmers quite a challenge.
We've made an online catalog that takes a closer look the history of the Futurefarmers. You can find it here.
Futurefarmers has been a practicing artist collective since 1994. Founded by Amy Franceschini, this multifaceted design team has run the gamut, both in terms of production and systems of audience engagement. Between 1995-2005, Futurefarmers operated as a high-profile design studio creating, among so much other material, the now ubiquitous logo for Twitter. Their early clients included Lucas Film, Hewlett Packard, Swatch, Autodesk, and Greenpeace. Their design profits have been used to support an artist in residency program, research interests, and to engage in art projects around the globe. Over the past decade Futurefarmers have focused their design efforts towards the non-profit sector and activist realm while their art practice has taken shape as civic engagement with intent to initiate change in the places we live.
Their name, "Futurefarmers," is a play off the nomenclature of an agricultural organization established in the early 20th century, the Future Farmers of America. As their name suggests, they share a collective interest in living and working on a farm.
They’ve created temporary schools, community bread ovens, and large-scale exhibitions internationally. The Lunchbox Lab, enabled students to discover hydrogen-producing algae—which they showed in MoMA’s 2008 exhibition Design and the Elastic Mind. They’ve developed antiwar computer games, soil testing and remediation programs,even a Homeland Security Blanket! Their ongoing project with the city of San Francisco, Victory Gardens, supports the transition of unused land into food production areas. In this past year they have erected a bake house in Norway and presented projects at the New York Hall of Science, the Berkeley Art Museum, and SFMOMA.
Futurefarmers’ work has been included in exhibitions internationally at venues including ZKM Center for Art and Media, the Whitney Museum, New York MoMA, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), and the Edith Russ Site for Media Art. Their awards include a Graham Foundation grant, an Investing in Artists grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation, the SECA Art Award from SFMOMA, an Artadia Award, a 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Eureka Fellowship.
Gallery 16 is excited to announce a major exhibition/archaeological look at the important Bay Area artist collective Futurefarmers. This exhibition will present objects spanning nearly 20 years of art making.
The human brain is wired for categorizing, it’s an essential trait, but one that makes following the myriad of artistic, design, and social engagements of Futurefarmers quite a challenge.
We've made an online catalog that takes a closer look the history of the Futurefarmers. You can find it here.
Futurefarmers has been a practicing artist collective since 1994. Founded by Amy Franceschini, this multifaceted design team has run the gamut, both in terms of production and systems of audience engagement. Between 1995-2005, Futurefarmers operated as a high-profile design studio creating, among so much other material, the now ubiquitous logo for Twitter. Their early clients included Lucas Film, Hewlett Packard, Swatch, Autodesk, and Greenpeace. Their design profits have been used to support an artist in residency program, research interests, and to engage in art projects around the globe. Over the past decade Futurefarmers have focused their design efforts towards the non-profit sector and activist realm while their art practice has taken shape as civic engagement with intent to initiate change in the places we live.
Their name, "Futurefarmers," is a play off the nomenclature of an agricultural organization established in the early 20th century, the Future Farmers of America. As their name suggests, they share a collective interest in living and working on a farm.
They’ve created temporary schools, community bread ovens, and large-scale exhibitions internationally. The Lunchbox Lab, enabled students to discover hydrogen-producing algae—which they showed in MoMA’s 2008 exhibition Design and the Elastic Mind. They’ve developed antiwar computer games, soil testing and remediation programs,even a Homeland Security Blanket! Their ongoing project with the city of San Francisco, Victory Gardens, supports the transition of unused land into food production areas. In this past year they have erected a bake house in Norway and presented projects at the New York Hall of Science, the Berkeley Art Museum, and SFMOMA.
Futurefarmers’ work has been included in exhibitions internationally at venues including ZKM Center for Art and Media, the Whitney Museum, New York MoMA, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), and the Edith Russ Site for Media Art. Their awards include a Graham Foundation grant, an Investing in Artists grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation, the SECA Art Award from SFMOMA, an Artadia Award, a 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Eureka Fellowship.
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