Futurefarmers
San Francisco
Studio Futurefarmers, founded by Amy Franceschini in 1995, is a platform for artists, designers, architects, anthropologists, writers and farmers with a common interest in exchanging moments of not-knowing. nomad talked to the Futurefarmers about what that involves, and what results the process delivers.
An interview with
Amy Franceschini & Lode Vranken.
Words by Sarah Dorkenwald
Amy, you founded Futurefarmers in 1995–that’s 25 years ago. What has changed since then?
AF
Well, the air quality right now is a lot like when Futurefarmers started in 1995 because of the coronavirus. There’s less traffic, there are fewer container ships, and I can actually see mountains I haven’t seen for years. So that’s something that has gone full circle.Futurefarmers started as a design studio, but it was actually a hiding-place from another design studio called Atlas. In 1994 we created a project called Atlas Magazine that became quite popular. I was the designer. But it was too much of an audience, and I needed a place to freak out and do things where people weren’t looking–or at least I thought they weren’t looking. And so I started Futurefarmers as a space where I could experiment. But it was kind of lonely there, so I started an artist-in-residency programme. At that time we were building websites for large clients like Lucasfilm, Adobe and Swatch. The residency programme ended up as a strong project lasting for about ten years. Residents would come and work on corporate projects, but then we would take time to make money and do experimental projects together. And that led into doing less commercial work and more artwork.
What does the studio comprise now?
AF
At this point, we’re not a conventional design studio. We’e a hybrid practice between many things, between research, architecture, design, conceptual art and alternative education. None of those terms are a perfect match, but they help to establish some frameworks for the collective spirit of enquiry among the various constellations of people that make up Futurefarmers. We share a common interest to extend this spirit of enquiry into action — how do we make it participatory and turn enquiry into a tangible material articulation?
Has there always been a core group of people you have collaborated with, or how is Futurefarmers organised?
AF
We’ve had a core group since 1994, and a growing, shifting group over the years. Myself and Michael Swaine have worked together since 1998. The artist-in-residency programme really brought in new collaborators. So there were periods where specific people took part, and you can identify a certain issue or mode of working. For example, designer Josh On was initially an artist-in-residence, but then became a partner in the design studio for seven or eight years. From 2003 to the present, architect Lode Vranken, myself, media producer Stijn Schiffeleers, inventor Michael Swaine and cyberfeminist Marthe Van Dessel have been a constant group. The constellations, or let’s say working groups, have a lot to do with a mixture of comfort and discomfort — we agree to disagree and challenge our assumptions. Sometimes the constellation is based on proximity, which is a very practical basis, but sometimes if we’re located in San Francisco, a different constellation is formed than in Belgium or other places.
What are the challenges if you work together in a collaborative way? How do you push the project in a certain direction?
LV
I suppose it’s more that the collaborators push it rather than there being a way of collaborating. It depends on the constellation, on who’s present and what happens. It’s an overlap of skills and interests where something pops up and the project can go in a certain direction. Sometimes someone with certain skills is needed to join us and the constellation grows. It is like a process of kneading together.AF
I think the kneading together is important, kneading as in dough. There is a reciprocal relation. For example, a motto in a project we did in Oslo was bread kneads hands. There is always a back and forth. We have a history of working in a very intensive way, where we live together in very close proximity when we’re working on a project — sharing meals, going on walks and encountering new things together. For example, we met Lode in Ghent, Belgium, in 2003; he was our landlord and upstairs neighbour, and out of sheer proximity we started to do projects together. Futurefarmers works best when the ideas come out of a walk or a coffee where the intention isn’t to have a meeting, but things just come by chance and spontaneously.
Can you give an example?
AF
When we did the Flatbread Society project in Oslo, we all took time out of our everyday lives and were in a sort of Futurefarmers petri dish: living in a single apartment where we didn’t have the distractions of our daily lives, but were fully focused in a place and situation where every conversation and act fed into the project — kneading and wandering together. Futurefarmers calls this notion of time and place a situation, whereby operating within a framework of physical proximity in a situation opens up momentum for unexpected encounters, the ethos of engagement with others and collectively bearing witness.
How do you start a project?
AF
We often start with an action, not an invitation from a cultural institution. Most of the collaborations start with a very formal exchange, which is often a way of being together. We are all quite shy or awkward and making something is a way of being together.LV
I don’t know how they start. If we go back to this idea of a constellation of people, most of the projects start by just hanging around. We meet people, something starts and it becomes physical. But then because something happens, people get enthusiastic and the projects that started small begin to grow. Possibilities grow as well, and quite often the support then grows in terms of budget and scope.
