Amy Franceschini: Presence as Practice

Amy Franceschini is an artist and founder of Futurefarmers, a group of international artists, architects, computer programmers, writers, farmers and anthropologists whose practices coalesce in many forms – from the far-reaching digital realms to the deeply rooted earthly domains.  

In this talk, Franceschini will present a survey of Futurefarmers’ work focused on their unconventional approach to durational public artwork between 2007 and the present. Working in both urban and rural contexts where intricate social structures are intertwined with infrastructure and the complexities of collective memories embedded in (and around) a site, Futurefarmers cultivate public life in place.  

Rather than inserting pre-determined forms and concepts into public space, Futurefarmers do so through a process-led approach and inviting materials and communities to arrive and intersect at a specific site or situation. Through time and the practiced presence of Futurefarmers, the meeting place of people and materials transform from provisional arrangements into durable forms and functions of their works. 

The Guggenheim Museum showcased the San Francisco-based collective in the show “Intervals: Futurefarmers” in 2011. Franceschini has also exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art (2008), the 2000 Whitney Biennial, the 2017 Sharjah Biennale, and the 2018 Taipei Biennale. Publications include “A Variation on Powers of Ten,” Sternberg Press, 2012 and “For Want of a Nail,” MIT Press, 2018.  

Born in Patterson, CA in 1970, Franceschini received her BFA in photography from San Francisco State University in 1992 and her MFA from Stanford University in 2002. She is the recipient of a 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship and Herb Alpert Award and launched the Speculative Ecologies Lab in the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley.  

Franceschini has collaborated with Marthe Van Dessel since 2015. They find themselves entangled in overlapping interests in the commons, hi/low tech horizons and a critical view on consequences of the tools we make. They have been the lead artists of Flatbread Society, a 10-year-long public art project in Oslo, artist/researchers in residence at the University of California in Santa Cruz and lead artists crew on the sea-faring Seed Journey (2016+). 

Learn more at Futurefarmers.