Amy Franceschini

San Francisco, USA

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.

• www.atlasmagazine.com
• www.flatbreadsociety.net

Michael Swaine

Seattle, USA

Michael Swaine was originally trained as a ceramicist, but he works in a variety of materials, methods, and media and has had a long-time focus on collaborative work. Michael has collaborated with Futurefarmers since 1997. Michael's Free Mending Library 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. This project became an on-going, monthly happening that took place in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco from 2002-2015. Michael received his B.F.A. from Alfred University in Ceramics and his M.A. in Design from UC Berkeley. Michael is an assistant professor in the 3D4M at the University of Washington, Seattle.

Lode Vranken

Lode Vranken has been the lead architect and philosopher of Futurefarmers since 2008. Beginning with a Transpolar Catapult built in Anchorage, Alaska, Lode's fascination with installing situations of renewed socio-spacial dynamics has led Futurefarmers to sea and back to shore again. Lode has been practicing architecture internationally since 1993 when 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 Technology in Bangkok, Thailand. Lode co-founded the architectural research coalition, De Bouwerij in Belgium that focuses on social living structures and passive houses, Cradle 2 Cradle buildings and zero
energy construction. He is also a partner of Dear Pigs in Belgium and member of the The Ghent School for Metaphysics.

• DeBouwerij
• Dear Pigs
• The Ghent School for Metaphysics

Stijn Schiffeleers

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 soaring above the streets of San Francisco in a canoe mounted to the top of the Futurefarmers Volvo and most recently in Gent, Belgium. Stijn has collaborated with Futurefarmers since 2003.

• www.mulchio.net
• www.boutiquevizique.com

Anya Kamenskaya

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.

• Indigenous Farm Project

Dan Allende

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 his M.F.A. (2015) at Carnegie Mellon. Dan collaborated with Futurefarmers between 2009-2015 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.