Futurefarmers - A Soil Procession

Futurefarmers: A Soil Procession

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Futurefarmers: A Soil Procession

Futurefarmers: A Soil Procession, represents a chance to view remarkable work. For me, moving from Los Angeles to the Central Valley was a bit of a culture shock and gave me the feeling of being in the middle of nowhere. As the initial shock passed, the middle of nowhere became the feeling of home. Modesto, a place that was previously a shortcut to Sacramento or the Bay Area, instead became the start of a drive out into the country. County roads, a glimpse of a slower life, replaced previously traveled traffic clogged L.A. freeways. As I drove past old farm houses or barns in ruins, I would often wonder what was life like for that farmer? Did they enjoy farming? Did they have a sense of purpose? Did they care about the land and how it was used? As a group, Futurefarmers asks many of these same questions and deconstructs the systems that make up our world. The work of Futurefarmers can help make sense of things and in many cases, become the catalyst for positive change.

The University Art Gallery’s programing helps to support our faculty’s teaching. It is through faculty recommendations that many exhibitions come to our galleries. This exhibition was recommended by my colleague Jake Weigel, who wrote the following about Futurefarmers work: “I met Amy and Michael at a performance as part of an exhibition at Yerba Buena Arts Center in San Francisco and found out she was from Turlock. Amy grew up on her father’s farm outside of Turlock.

The influence of agriculture in the Central Valley directly influenced her work as an artist and creation of Futurefarmers with other, such as Michael, Lode and many others. Now that she has been working collectively across international boundaries, it’s an exciting opportunity to bring the group back to Turlock with a fresh, global perspective on land use that incorporates agriculture, anthropology, economics and many other crossdisciplinary practices that combine performance with object making.”

I am very happy to be able to exhibit Futurefarmers work for others to enjoy.

I would like to thank the many colleagues that have been instrumental in presenting this exhibition. Futurefarmers for the chance of exhibiting their work, Jake Weigel for recommending the Futurefarmers exhibition, Brad Peatross of the School of the Arts, California State University, Stanislaus for the catalog design and Parks Printing for the printing this catalog.

Much gratitude is extended to the Instructionally Related Activates Program of California State University, Stanislaus, as well as anonymous donors for the funding of the exhibition and catalogue. Their support is greatly appreciated.

Dean De Cocker Director, University Art Galleries California State University, Stanislaus

Flatbread Society Soil Procession, 2015

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Futurefarmers: A Soil Procession

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, a design studio serves as a platform to support art projects and an artist in residence program. We are artists, designers, architects, anthropologists, writers, computer programmers 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, campus design 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, Sharjah Biennale, Taipei Biennale, Henie Onstad Museum, Oslo, New York Hall of Sciences and the Walker Art Center.

Futurefarmers zoom in on “assembly” by asking: “Who is part of our assemblage?

Who is the other that co-determines or co-constitutes what is of importance?

What provokes this pre-subjective process of communization?”

With projects such as Flatbread Society, the Futurefarmers collective focuses on concrete practice.

They conduct hands-on exploration of how people and things, neighbors and grains effect each other...

Nico Dockx + Pascal Gielen

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Futurefarmers - The Artists

Amy Franceschini San Francisco, USA Amy Franceschini is an artist and designer whose work 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 creates relational objects that invoke action and 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 group of artists, anthropologists, farmers and architects who work together to propose alternatives to the social, political and environmental organization of space. 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 and is currently faculty in the Eco-Social masters program at the Free University in Bolzano, Italy. Amy is a 2009 Guggenheim fellow, a 2019 Rome Prize Fellow and has received grants from the Cultural Innovation Fund, Creative Work Fund and the Graham Foundation. www.atlasmagazine.com www.flatbreadsociety.net

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Michael Swaine Seattle, USA Michael Swaine was originally trained as a ceramicist. 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 a 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. Lode’s fascination with installing situations of renewed socio-spacial dynamics began with a Transpolar Catapult built in Anchorage, Alaska and has manifest in various modalities since then. Lode has been practicing architecture internationally since 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 Technology in Bangkok, Thailand. Lode cofounded the architectural research coalition, De Bouwerij in Belgium that focuses on social living structures, passive housing, 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 collaborated with Futurefarmers between 2003 - 2017. www.mulchio.net www.boutiquevizique.com

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Anya Kamenskaya Anya Kamenskaya is an ag-centric organizer and green building apprentice. Within Futurefarmers, she manages the Indigenous Farming Project, a tribal food sovereignty initiative in California’s Owens Valley and fostered early relations with farmers in Flatbread Society in Oslo, Norway. Since 2009, she has curated educational events, film screenings and social mixers for the advocacy nonprofit, the Greenhorns. She is a member of DIG Cooperative, Inc., a design-build firm focused on decentralized urban water infrastructure. She received her B.S. in Agroecology from UC Berkeley.

Dan Allende Daniel is an artist, builder and inventor. He spent many summers orienteering by canoe in Canada where he went 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.

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Futurefarmers: A Soil Procession

People, Seeds, Belonging Together Cock-a-doodle-doo! The rooster Tor-Ild calls early in the morning Saturday, June 13th. During the summer, this usually happens twice: first, around five as the sun starts to warm up the hen house and then around 7:30, when it is time to wake. I peek out the window and see the green leaves on the trees move gently. The weather is nice, a few scattered clouds and some glints of sunlight. The air is clear and filled with the scents of early summer: shots of spruce, lilac, grass, forget-me-not, manure, lily of the valley, birch, roses, pine, lichen, timothy and soil; the sun-heated fur of horses and dogs.

Soil Procession poster

When you are awakened by Tor-Ild, it means you have spent the night at Øvre Ringstad, a smallholding run by Søssa Jørgensen and Geir Tore Holm. Five years ago, the two visual artists moved from the city of Oslo to this plot of land in Skiptvet, Østfold. The farm is a home, a good place to visit. At the same time, it is a place for questions about soil, land, and water: our future. It offers perspective and potential, a political starting point for an artistic practice that can feed into different observations of agricultural, political, and social landscapes in transformation. The seasons dictate the slow and at times heavy manual work, animals, and topography. There is the gathering of firewood in the forest and the harvesting of crops from the fields. You digest the food, thoughts, and reflections that strengthen the possibility to act: This is done with endurance and care, as visual

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artists, farmers, and fellow humans.

Today, Øvre Ringstad is one of 50 Norwegian farms from Tromsø in the north to Stokke in the south that will deliver soil to the Flatbread Society Grainfield at Losætra. The Flatbread Society is a permanent public art project created in a “common” area amidst the waterfront development of Bjørvika, in Oslo, Norway. In 2012, the international arts collective Futurefarmers formed the Flatbread Society as an initiative to work with local actors to establish an aligned vision for the use of this land. This work was commissioned by the visual arts program “Slow Space”1 and is owned by Bjørvika Development; it aims to activate the commons constructed in this area. As part of a long-term program, the Flatbread Society will today inaugurate Losæter, a new cultural institution: a grainfield, a bakehouse, and a declaration of land use that defines the common as a place for art and cultivation. The name Losæter combines two Norwegian terms for the commons, “Loallmenning” and “sæter”. “Lo” points to the geographic placement of the site near the water, and “sæter” refers the right to put animals to pasture and to put up a house for the summer2. In this way, Losæter embraces the project as a whole and connects it to the agricultural heritage of Norway, from its past to the future. The common will be an environment for co-creation and self-government, where the understanding of citizenship and sustainability is central.

Like a river, people flow steadily from rural areas to cities. The world is going through a wave of urban growth as never seen before. More than half of the people on the globe now live in cities or urban areas. Urbanization creates social, economic, and environmental changes with new possibilities for resource effectiveness and growth. But cities are also divided by deep visible and invisible trenches, between prosperous neighborhoods

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Soil Procession poster

Tea Mobile, watercolor on paper, Amy Franceschini, 2012

and informal settlements.

Emptying rural zones of people has consequences. Industrial agriculture gets more elbow room and spreads out with greed, strangling the diversity of sustainable agricultural systems, smallholdings, and the invisible population of soil microorganisms. Seeds and knowledge are patented, traditions related to agriculture and local knowledge disappear, the soil is privatized by multinational companies that destroy the groundwater through chemical fertilization. Life in all its forms has lowest priority. An un-ecological circle is thus formed.

Yesterday, at Øvre Ringstad, farmhands Einar and Jeremy dug up black earth from where the old barn used to stand. At the same time, they prepared for the upcoming construction of a multi-use barn. One ton of soil was shoveled onto a trailer behind the Jeep that would be taking the farmers and soil to the city this morning.

The trip from farmland to city took about an hour from Østfold – Norway´s fifth-largest agricultural region – to the most densely populated urban area in the country. As we move past the city along the Oslofjord, we can

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see the capital showing off its new suit: Bjørvika. This is Oslo`s own Bilbao effect: The Barcode is a cluster in steel and glass, and the Opera House is of white Italian marble, shiny pearls and flashy bling like a necklace around the harbor, which was once dominated by industry and containers. Following the pre-tailored strategy of city planning, this waterfront has now adapted to the so-called experience economy with the goal of attracting commerce, injecting fresh money, creating new possibilities for resourceful actors, and catering to the ever-growing flow of tourists.

Making clever use of rhetoric, the city branding of “Oslo Fjord City”3 has opened a need to access the fjord: “The Blue and the Green, the City in Between”. Local politics have also established the need for historical connections, making use of language and lines of sight, aiming to create identity with this constructed land. Bjørvika has been imbued with a touch of the Middle Ages, an image evoked by its street names4. This lends a historical vibe, potentially just as filled with information as the sediment of the Oslo harbor, where one finds layer upon layer of shipwrecks and some Viking boats – parts of lived lives from more than a thousand years of time.

The lines of sight, with their historical weight, cross and gently touch the buildings of glass and steel resting on some of the country’s most unstable land5. Could one imagine that this waterfront city already functions as a monument to the present neo-liberal era?

Seed Journey,

“Hello and welcome!” says Mats Pålsrud. “Here is a number sign for marking your soil. Follow Stijn and park your car over there.

You will have time for coffee before the soil procession starts.” Cars with trailers, a tractor, about 15 wheelbarrows with soil, grown-ups and children, dogs, hens, a horse, and a donkey have already arrived. The parking lot by the Botanical Garden at Tøyen functions this morning as a temporary harbor for soil.

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Photo: Amy Franceschini, 2017

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The name Tøyen comes from the word Tadvin6 (Todien) consisting of tad (dirt, manure, black) and vin (meadow, field). Soil, a mix of different minerals, organic substances and billions of living micro-organisms, donated from many corners of Norway, is to be found today in Tøyen. An unexpected moment of excitement arises when a Nordland horse and the donkey are amorously attracted to each other – a flirtatious dance of prancing and pattering amongst the crowd of people preparing for the journey.

Tam-tattaram-tam-tattaratta-tam-tam-tam-tattaratttam!

The drums start to play! The cars are rolling slowly after the wheelbarrows and the farmers on foot. The procession passes through Tøyengata, turns left by the Intercultural Museum, continues out onto the busy Grønlandsleiret and follows along Gamlebyen, and along the way, a 3-by-3-meter soft flatbread made of cloth joins the procession. Trams, buses, and cars stop. A wooden chest containing the Flatbread Society grain seeds to be planted in Losæter is carried in front, showing the way.

Along the road there are people. Many are filming with their

smartphones.

Some

smile or look curious; others seem skeptical. Maybe they are reacting to the drumming, which could evoke a military march? Could the participants in the procession be perceived as temporary, nomadic neo-colonialists of Oslo`s multi-cultural neighborhood?

Tam-tattaram-tam-tattaratta-tam-tam-tam-tattaratta-tam!

“What are you demonstrating against?” a woman shouts from the side of the road. “It is not a demonstration against anything, but rather for! We are bringing forth soil from Norwegian farms to Bjørvika. Come and take part!” a man on a bike answers.

Healthy soil for a healthy life. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN declared 2015 the International Year of Soil7. Some of the objec-

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Bjørvika Development, Oslo, Norway, Photo: City Oslo. 2013

tives are to raise awareness about the basic importance of the soil in human lives and the decisive roles soil plays in the food security, climate change, fighting poverty, and sustainable development.

The most important means of securing food is to support diverse means of production and different scales of farming. The Norwegian government has this year exTemporary Bakehouse Photo: Amy Franceschini, 2013

hausted negotiations with the Norwegian Farmers Union. It is a paradox that while the UN declares the importance of soil protection in relation to decreasing poverty and world hunger, the local government is passing a bill that undermines this ambition. In a report that Norsk Bonde og Småbrukarlag8 carried out earlier this year, a message from the Minister of Agriculture and Food can be perceived as a potential threat to close down small-scale agricultural industry. Smallholdings and family farming will have a much smaller chance of survival if such political decisions are passed.

2015 is also the year in which the UN`s Climate Summit in Paris takes place, aiming to reach agreement on how to reach the goal of a two-degree maximum global temperature increase. In May, Christiana Figueres from UNFCCC received an open letter9 from the biggest oil and gas companies signed by their leaders. One of their suggestions was to introduce a fixed price on carbon so carbon emissions could then be traded on the international market. Where are the voices of the soil, the ocean, the forest, and the atmosphere in these negotiations?

Tam-tattaram-tam-tattaratta-tam-tam-tam-tattaratta-tam!

Gazing towards the Oslo fjord, with the city to our backs, we approach Losætra at Loallmenningen. The smell of smoke from a fire and freshly baked bread meets us at the middle of the road. It is baker Emmanuel Rang, who is already preparing flatbread. A landscape of smells embraces

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and releases a temporary store of memories, bringing along past travels in time and space.

Loallmenningen is hollow. This is where the Flatbread Society Grainfield will be established, on one of the seven commons in Bjørvika. The foundation of this site is a ceiling, and just as water flows under a glacier, the rush traffic of Oslo channels invisibly under our feet through the Bjørvika tunnel. Now the common will be filled with soil and visions.

The choir from Nordic Black Theatre welcomes the soil procession with lokk singing10, calling the herd, as we arrive at Losætra. Everyone is gathered in the middle of the field for an inauguration ritual. The giant flatbread is spread out as a carpet on the grass and one handful of soil from each of the 50 farms is poured onto it and carefully mixed.

“Beneath our feet, there is an invisible society of microorganisms. Between us, there is earth cared for by the farmers who brought it here,” Amy Franceschini says in her welcoming speech. “Today we celebrate soil and the farmers. This is the start of the permanent living art work called the Flatbread Society Grainfield, dedicated to heritage grains.” Over time, the grainfield will become a living portrait of diverse agriculture, a stage for growing and an ongoing demonstration of desired values for soil and food production. A portal is placed onto the open field, a temporary sculpture by the artist Jørund Aase Falkenberg made from recycled wooden materials from the Flatbread Society’s temporary bakehouse built in 2013. “The Portal” is an object or construction that serves as a lens through which the physical and mental world can be observed.

Art

becomes

something

that works with, rather than against the world. The grainfield symbolizes resilience and durability, a reminder of how people through the centuries, by painstaking trial and error, discovered what

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Temporary Bakehouse Three ovens.

Photo: Amy Franceschini, 2013

Flatbread Society Soil Procession, Video Still, Futurefarmers, 2015

Flatbread Society Soil Procession, Video Still, Futurefarmers, 2015

Flatbread Society Declaration of Land Use, Soil as Witness Photo: Svein Kjøde, 2015

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could be eaten and cultivated. The stark, profit-driven logic represented by the architecture of the Barcode is an alienating contrast to the ideas anchored at Losætra. ”My dream is that this will become a sæter in collaboration with the schools!” exclaims Anne Beate Hovind, the commissioner from the Bjørvika development. She is given the word and follows up with a story about farmer Johan Swärd from Vestre Aschim Farm: He was invited to visit Loallmenningen to give his opinion on the agricultural potential of the place. ”With the hills of Ekeberg in such close proximity,

Form & Function Workshop, Kneading Metaphor as Schedule, Photo: Amy Franceschini, 2013

the only thing missing is the soil!” was his message. Swärd is a close collaborator and has also brought some of the first seeds to the grainfield: svedjerug, nakenbygg, spelt, emmer, and enkorn.

What makes a city resilient? Urban- and guerilla gardening has increased and become widespread over the past twenty years. The lack of affordable, nutritious food in megacities has started important citizen initiatives that mobilize direct action in their cities. The Flatbread Society is not only about growing food in the city alongside a privileged community. The art project proposes and demonstrates that one should perceive the common not only as a natural resource, but as a process. A set of social relations where, for example, a group of people share responsibility for a grainfield, or from a larger perspective, their neighborhood. As noted in

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Form and Function Workshop, Photo: Max Mclure, 2013

Flatbread Society Grain Field,

The Guardian, “The commons seems to offer an alternative to the battle

Photo: Vibeke Hermanrud, 2015

between public and private. It has radical potential, beyond community gardens.”11 The act of founding Losæter is a concrete response and contribution to the present geopolitical discourse on responsible use, access, and distribution of the limited resources on earth. The Flatbread Society Grainfield has radical potential. A parallel example in another European capital is the project Atelier d’architecture autogérée12, which, in 2012, started a farm for collective use in one of the suburbs of Paris. Four hundred citizens have 5000 sqm at their disposal, where they produce food, energy, and eco-housing. This is a large-scale experiment with practical and political dimensions that is expanding to even more suburbs in the city.

Back at Losætra. Regine Andersen, administrative director of Oikos Norway13 reads from The Flatbread Society’s Declaration for land use at Loallmenningen in Bjørvika: ”With the establishment of Losæter at Loallmenningen, we mark our commitment to support and highlight agriculture as a central part of

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the Bjørvikas cultural landscape. We hereby declare Losæter a cultural commons. Losæter shall advance and contribute to the free and open exchange of seeds, knowledge, and relationships that grew out of this place.

By signing this document, living traditions should be protected from any laws that interfere with these activities and that may be obstacles to the cultivation, distribution and future use of the biological material that grows on this land. The Flatbread Society Grainfield is an expression for this agreement. Unlike museums that collect and preserve works of art, The Flatbread Society Grainfield is a museum without walls that preserve through sharing and distribution.”

Contributors essential to the evolution of Losætra then came forward and signed the declaration.

A new topology of Norway is organically growing into a presence as the soil is moved onto the field, designed to resemble a map of Norway. A force of manual labor, people with shovels and wheelbarrows, are guided by number plates, creating paths that bring the form of the map to light.

The geographical location of each of the contributing farms becomes visible.

At Losætra, several activities are happening at once: Marius and Mikkel, the beekeepers from Oslo Apiary, are hosting a honey tasting and celebrating the new home for their bees. Zoe Christiansen has arrived with edible seaweed from the North Atlantic Ocean: Søl (Palmaria palmate), Sukkertang (Laminaria Saccharina), and Purpurhinde (Porphyra). Because of its natural abundance of minerals and vitamins, seaweed is commonly harvested in most coastal cities, and it is used as nutrition for humans and animals as well as soil. Food from the past creates sustainable natural fertilizer for the future. Next to the Futurefarmers Kiln, Michael is showing clay and its molecular properties. Clay

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Flatbread Society Bakehouse, Photo: Monica Loevdahl, 2015

from the soil donated by the farmers today will be shaped into pots to hold the seeds. This is part of the next step for the Flatbread Society.

A bakehouse will be built, a sculpture to be used for all people interested in baking. In addition to housing baked goods, this house will be a seed library. A living archive, in Radio Ramona (in baguette).

Photo: Max McClure, 2013

contrast to the hermetically closed Svalbard Global Seed Vault14, will be used and administered by the farmers of Losætra. Making seeds available in a free library is an act that emphasizes sharing and supports the knowledge needed to expand the awareness of soil and food. People and seeds do belong together.

And as it should be on such a beautiful day, this inauguration culminated with a giant feast. Food Studio and Masayo Funakoshi prepared heavenly delights, food and drink made with ingredients sourced from surrounding farms. Savory meat stew, salads of flowers and wild greens, beer, sausages, cakes, honey, and of course, flatbread!

The Flatbread Society is like the ground, made up of several layers of meaning. Over time, more sediment will be generated and will grow slowly, allowing the common to gain strong roots, planted with care in the soil with well-traveled microorganisms. The actions made today will leave marks that can be read in the future. The soil already conceals the remains of the labor, failures, and successes of former generations. In what form will our labor be visible in, let´s say, 50 years? This we can only speculate on, but the inclusion of legislative policies to secure the future of Losætra is wise. Using an artistic medium on equal level as, for example, steel, wood, or concrete, Futurefarmers is making use of laws and jurisdictions to create one very important, but to the eye, invisible, layer of art. The foundation for starting the common requires the in-depth attention and

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care observed at Losætra. This is also how a process of commoning can be secured. A way out of today’s industrialized food production and uneven distribution of wealth begins by changing attitudes and going against the grain. We need to integrate agriculture into our lives if we want to create a sustainable and non-exploitive society. An awareness linked to the cultivation of soil is now slowly pulsating straight into the heart of our cities.

In a world of economic, social, and physical barriers created by the logic of neoliberal policies, it becomes a life vest. The grainfield will carry multiple seeds for growing and nurturing communities, knowledge, and direct action, now and the future.

Back at Øvre Ringstad, I am sitting on a bench, gazing over a wide, yellow grainfield that ends in a forest on the opposite side. The sun is orange and slowly sinking behind a small hill. All the animals have been fed, and it is now time to withdraw into the house and join the farmers, who are resting, getting prepared for a new day at Øvre Ringstad.

The author would like to thank following people for their input and editing advice: Kjersti Vetterstad, Randi Nygård, Åse Løvgren, Geir Tore Holm, Søssa Jørgensen and Amy Franceschini.

English translation by Randi Nygård and Karolin Tampere.

Radio Ramona and Vavilov Barley Photo: Max McClure, 2013

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Footnotes 1

http://slowspace.no/

2

http://www.flatbreadsociety.net/about

3

http://www.oslohavn.no/en/fjord_city/about_the_fjord_city/

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Dronning Eufemia Street is Bjørvikas main street. Gata is named after Euphemia of Rügen, Norway’s queen from 1299 to 1312 .https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dronning_Eufemias_gate_(Oslo)

5

http://geoforskning.no/nyheter/grunnforskning/751-innsynkingen-i-bjorvika

6

http://www.nhm.uio.no/om/bygninger/hovedgarden/ (22.06.15

7

http://www.fao.org/soils-2015/about/en/ (22.06.15)

8

Norsk Bonde- og Småbrukarlag, Et landbruk uten kvinner, Kvinner demokrati og deltakelse, mars 2015, Rapporten kan lastes ned her http://www.smabrukarlaget.no/ http://www.folkmusic.no/lokk-herding-calls.4610026-137785.html

9

http://newsroom.unfccc.int/unfccc-newsroom/major-oil-companies-letter-to-un/

10 http://www.folkmusic.no/lokk-herding-calls.4610026-137785.html 11 http://www.theguardian.com/cities/series/resilient-cities 12 Atelier d’architecture autogérée / Studio for Self-managed aArchitecture (aaa) is a collective platform that conducts exploration, actions, and research on urban mutations and cultural, social, and political emerging practices in the contemporary city.

From their web page, http://www.urbantactics.org/ 13 The national movement of organic producers and consumers 14 https://www.regjeringen.no/no/tema/mat-fiske-og-landbruk/landbruk/svalbard_global_ frohvelv/id462220/

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Flatbread Society Canoe Oven Derive, Photo: Amy Franceschini, 2013

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Amy Franceschini/Future Farmers CV

EDUCATION 2002

Stanford University, MFA, New Genres

1992

San Francisco State University, BFA, Photography

SELECT SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2022

San Jose State University, Natalie and James Thompson Art Gallery, San Jose, CA Speed of Light Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, California, USA Out of Place, In Place: Futurefarmers: A Survey

2018

Carpenter Center, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA Futurefarmers

2017

East Harlem Hunter Gallery, New York, NY Futurefarmers: Arrange Center Bot n, Santander, Spain, Seed Journey

2015

Casa del Lago, Mexico City, Mexico, Flatbread Society MAXXI, Rome, Italy, The Independent, Consortium Instabile

2014

Eli and Edythe Broad Museum, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI Flatbread Society

2013

Boston University School of Visual Arts Gallery, Boston, MA, Alternative Visions/Sustainable Futures

2012

Bild Museet, Umea, Sweden A Variation on the Powers of Ten

2011

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY Intervals: Shoemaker’s Dialogues UC Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA Matrix Exhibition: A Variation on the Powers of Ten

SELECT GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2022

Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder, CO. A Convening of Art and Farming

2021

Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, OH. Climate Changing: On Artists, Institutions, and the Social Environment Porto Design Biennale: Museum of Vibrant Matter, Porto Portugal Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, The Penumbral Age: Art in the Time of Planetary Change, Poland

2020

Kunsthalle Exnergasse: On The Edge, Vienna, Austria Kunstpalais, Survival of the Fittest. Erlangen, Germany MAO – Museum of Architecture + Design, 26th Common Knowledge: Biennial of Design Ljubljana, Slovenia

2019

LIAF – Lofoten International Art Festival Biennale, Svolv r, Norway Matera, Capital of Culture, Italy: Gardentopia: Cosmos of Ecologies Irsina, Italy Gropius Bau, Berlin, Garden of Earthly Delights Utopiana at Le Commun, Les 1000 cologies / The 1000 Ecologies, Geneva, Switzerland Milan Triennale of Architecture, Milan, Italy Broken Nature

2018

Taipei Biennale, Post-Nature – Museum as an Ecosystem, Taipei, Taiwan.

2017

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Designed in California Sharjah Biennale 13, Tamawuj, Sharjah Art Foundation, United Arab Emirates SALT/Galata, Istanbul, Turkey, The Uses of Art. Curated by November Paynter

2016

Henie-Onstad Art Center, B rum, Norway Utopia B rum ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany. Reset Modernity! April - September James Gallery, CUNY, Center for Humanities, New York, NY, Left Coast: California Political Art RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, Experimental Practice: Provocations In & Out f Design

2015

Liverpool Biennial, UK, Flatbread Society SITE: Santa Fe, Santa Fe, NM SITElines: New Perspectives on Art of the Americas SFMOMA/Oakland Museum of California Joint Exhibition, Oakland, CA Fertile Ground: Victory Gardens

2014

DiCordova Museum, Boston, MA Walden 20th World Congress of Soil Science, Jeju Korea. Soil Kitchen

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2013

X Architecture Biennale, S o Paulo Victory Gardens

2012

Venice Architectural Biennale: American Pavillion: Spontaneous Interventions San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco. Six Lines of Flight New York Hall of Science, New York ReGeneration Kunstraum Kreuzberg/ Bethanien, Berlin, Germany Hungry City

2011

NY MOMA, New York, Talk to Me San Francisco Planning + Urban Research Association, Reclaim Market Street

2010

Berlin University of Technology, The Art of Urban Ecology Orange County Museum, New Art for a New Century, Newport Beach, CA Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia In the Balance

2009

Cooper Union Gallery, NY, NY Free as Air and Water Shenzhen & Hong Kong, Shenzhen, China Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism + Architecture: City Mobilization Canadian Center for Architecture, Montreal Actions: What we can do with the City

2008

New York Museum of Modern Art, NY, NY Design and the Elastic Mind

2007

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA SECA Award Show

2006

Center Pompidou, Paris Les Yeux Ouverts

2005

ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany Dingpolitik: Atmospheres of Democracy NY MOMA, New York, NY Safe: Design Takes on Risk Smart Museum, Chicago, IL Beyond Green: Towards a Sustainable Art

2002

Whitney Museum of Art, New York, NY Whitney Biennale

2001

California College of Arts + Crafts, Oakland, CA Utopia Now

1999

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA Bay Area Now II

1998

Cooper-Hewitt Nat’l Design Museum, New York, NY Mixing Messages

CURATED PUBLIC PROGRAMMING / WORKSHOPS 2019

American Academy in Rome, The Sky is the Medium – One-day micro-radio workshop.

2014

Eli and Edythe Broad Museum, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI Panel discussion, performance: Open Outcry

2011

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Infinite City: Poison Palate Panel discussion

FELLOWSHIPS 2016

Interdisciplinary Research Fellowship, University of Wisconsin, Madison

2011-12

Visiting Scholar, UC Berkeley Center for New Media

PERMANENT PUBLIC ART 2021

S(tree)twork, Philadelphia, USA – Commissioned by PEW Center for Arts & Heritage

2018

City of Oslo, Norway, Flatbread Society Bakehouse. Commissioned by Situations, Bristol (2010-2018)

2009

Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA Victory Garden No. 4: Kitchen Garden

TEMPORARY PUBLIC ART 2021

Brussels, Belgium In the Belly of the City, A Whale: A 2-day floating happening with 24 musicians, writers and film makers.

2019

Dilbeek, Pajottenland, Belgium Brueghel’s Eye: Open Acre

2018

Middelheim Museum, Stadspark, Antwerp, Belgium, Brick Boat & Are You Receiving Me Cagliari, Italian Capital of Culture, Flatbread Society Bread Oven and Procession Pollinaria Rural Radio, Abruzzo, Italy. Green Art Lab Alliance supported by the Culture Programme of the European Union

2014

Philadelphia’s Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy Temporary Public Art, Soil Kitchen For-Site Foundation + San Francisco Presidio, San Francisco, CA Presidio Habitats

2010

Pollinaria, Abruzzo, Italy This is Not a Trojan Horse

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SELECT AWARDS/GRANTS 2021

Foundation for Contemporary Art, Emergency Grant

2020

Rome Prize, Design, American Academy in Rome, Italy

2019

Herb Alpert Award, Visual Arts

2017

Artes Mundi 7, Finalist

2014

Center for Cultural Innovation, Artistic Innovation

2013

Creative Work Fund with San Francisco Museum of Modern Art John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship Award, Fine Arts, New York Nevada Museum’s Artists | Writers | Environments Grant

2009

Creative Capital Foundation, Emerging Fields

2008

Art Matters, NY Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Arts, Victory Gardens

2007

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, SECA Award

BIBLIOGRAPHY 2022

Field Explorations: Design & Art-based Practices Towards Viable Agri-cultures: edited by Alastair Fuad-Luke, Publisher:

2021

Agents of Alternatives, Berlin. Chapter Contribution: Incubating Communities Art and Climate Change Thames & Hudson, World of Art Series, Authors: Maja and Reuben Fowkes Back to Earth: 136 Artists’ Ideas for Planet Earth. Edited by Hans Ulrich Obrist & Kostas Stasinopoulos. Serpentine Gallery, London.Publisher: Penguin/Random House

2020

New York Times, The End Is Nigh. Can Design Save Us? Art + Design. March 20, 2019 by Kimberly Bradley Flash Art, Broken Nature: Design Takes on Human Survival Triennale / Milan. August 13, 2019 by Leonardo Caffo The Politics of Food. Edited by Dani Burrows, Aaron Cezar, Delfina Foundation. Sternberg Press Frieze, Futurefarmers: A Motley Collective with a Utopian Mission, by Brian Karl, April 24, 2018

2019

Rurality Re-Imagined: Villagers, Farmers, Wanderers, Wild Things, Edited by Ben Stringer, pg. 96-97 Exploring Commonism - A New Aesthetics Of The Real, edited by Nico Dockx & Pascal Gielen, Valiz Publishing, Amsterdam The Constituent Museum, Valiz, Publisher, Amsterdam

2018

The Independent, Losaeter: The Oslo Urban Farm That’s Changing The Future Of Sustainable Dining by SarahTreleaven 18 June Sculpture Magazine, Pg. 11 Futurefarmers: Review, Hunter East Harlem Gallery. January/February 2018, Vol. 37 No. 1 Forbes, Lifestyle. Herb Alpert Awards Reward Risk-Taking Mid-Career Artists. Tom Teicholz, July 9 Domus, Review SALT/Galata’s: The Uses of Art. 14 April 2017 Art News, Seeds of Inspiration: Review of the 13th Sharjah Biennale by Mahnaz Fancy 08/22/17

2017

Kültür Sanat: Haritasıon, Istanbul. Art Use: Last Exhibition. By Culture Art Map. April 6, 2017 What’s Next? Eco Materialism and Contemporary Art, Linda Weintraub, For Want of a Nail Los Angeles Times, May 18. Carolina A. Miranda. Entertainment/Arts + Culture: Herb Alpert awards for experimental artists.

2016

BBC Wales: Artes Mundi: Artists Inspired by Migration & Future Cities. 10.26.

The Guardian: Artes Mundi Review. Art & Design Section 10.24 by Adrian Searle Reset Modernity! Edited by Bruno Latour, MIT Press – A Variation on Powers of Ten

2015

Media Art + the Urban Environment. Springer-Verlag. Toward an Ecological Urbanism by Maria Michails.

Out of Time. Out of Place: Public Art (Now) edited by Claire Doherty and published by Art / Books Huffington Post: Arts + Culture: Art Collective Puts Nuclear History In Perspective by Katherine Brooks. 07/14/2014

2014

Canadian Art Magazine, Review of Site Santa Fe’s: Biennial of the America’s by Sarah Milroy. Winter 2014 Undermining: A Wild Ride Through Land Use… Lucy Lippard, The New Press, NY pg. 184.

Artforum, Gallery 16 Review of Futurefarmers: Taking Stock. Feb. 1, 2014 by Frances Richard.

Art News: Flatbread Inspires Exhibition, Symposia in Grain Belt, Damaris Colhoun 09/03/14 Art and Ecology Now, Andrew Brown, Thames and Hudson. Chapter 5, ‘Re/Create’.

2013

Artforum: Reviews: Six Lines of Flight: Shifting Geographies in Contemporary Art by Elizabeth Mangini 01/2013 New York Times, Arts + Leisure: Outside the Citadel: Art That Nurtures by Randy Kennedy March 24 pg. 17

2012

New York Times, Art Museums Giving It the Old College Try, March 14, 2012 Keith Schneider Six Lines of Flight: Shifting Geographies in Contemporary Art by Apsara DiQuinzio.

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Public Art Review. Food Hazards by Nicole Caruth Issue 46 C Magazine, Review of Musuem of Folk + Craft Exhibition: Soil Kitchen pg. 52 by Jacqueline Bell.

To Life!: Eco Art in Pursuit of a Sustainable Planet by Linda Weintraub. University of California Press pgs.171-176 2011

Art in America, News, Simon Says: Futurefarmers Think Outside the Box, by Leigh Anne Miller 05/03/11 Sculpture Magazine, Itinerary, pg. 16 Guggenheim Intervals: The Shoemaker’s Dialogues May 2011 Vol. 30 No. 4 State of Mind: New California Art Circa 1970. Lewallen + Moss University of California Press, pg. 188 Art + Social Justice Education: Culture as Commons, Futurefarmers by Laurie Palmer, Routledge pg. 110-112, 190 Futurefarmers: Leaping Over the Impossible Present by Laurie Palmer, chp. 26 My Green City. Gestalten. pgs. 38, 40-41.

Art and Social Justice Education: Culture as Commons by John Ploof + Lisa Hochtritt, Routledge/Taylor Net Works: Case Studies in Web Art and Design. Routledge. by Xtine Burroughs. Chapter 4.

Talk to Me: Design + the Communication btw People + Objects, MOMA, NY, Paola Antonelli, pgs. 110, 142-43 Fifty Years of Bay Area Art: The SECA Awards, San Francisco MOMA, Victory Gardens.

2010

Frieze, In the Balance Review by Nicola Harvey. November/December 2010 Issue 135 Art News, Remaking the Map by Carley Berwick Oct. 10, 2010 BOMB. 112/Summer 2010 Futurefarmers by David van der Leer New York Times Magazine, Design Seeing Things: California Design Biennial, July 22, 2010 by Brooke Hodge Journal for Aesthetics and Protest, GO POST MONEY!, COOP 57 Abitare 499, Greetings from Shenzhen 3: Guests of the Dragon, January 2010, by Fabrizio Gallanti The Art Text: Writing In + Through the Arts, Goteborg, Sweden

2009

Art in America, Review Futurefarmers/Baltimore Contemporary, pg. 173 by Cathy Liebowitz, Oct. 2009 No. 9 Los Angeles Times, Backyard Victory Gardens, Mary MacVean FOOD section Dec. 22 Guardian, The Observer, England. Life + Style. Let’s Hear it for Vegetables. Apr. 19, 2009 William Shaw Experimental Geography, Melville, pg. 102-104

2008

Art Papers, Greening the Revolution, December 2008, Berin Golonu New York Times, Design + Living, Bump on a Log, Carly Berwick Time Magazine, Inner-City Farms, Lisa McLaughlin, July 24 New York Times, Urban Agriculture, Allison Arieff, July 28, 2008. By Design

2007

Artforum, Top Ten: Victory Gardens, 2007+, Chip Lord, May 2007 New York Times, Looking for Inspiration in the Melting Ice, Art, pg. 35, Claire Dederer 9/07 LAND, ART: A Cultural Ecology Handbook, RSA, London, pg. 132-142 San Francisco Chronicle, Victory Gardens, Datebook, pg. 89, Zahid Sardar

2001

National Geographic. Silicon Valley: Inside the Dream Incubator, Cathy Newman, pg. 60

WRITING/BIBLIOGRAPHY 2021

1000 Ecologies, Edited by Utopiana, Geneva, Switzerland. Metis Presses. Amy Franceschini: The Sky is the Medium Park. Reader. Lev Art, Levanger, Norway. Electromagic: The Electromagnetic Spectrum as Critical Natural Resource

2018

For Want of a Nail by Futurefarmers. No Place Press/MIT Press, New York/Boston

2011

A Variation on Powers of Ten, Sternberg Press. Written/Edited by Amy Franceschini / Futurefarmers Farm Together NOW, Chronicle Books, San Francisco, CA Written/Edited by Amy Franceschini + Daniel Tucker

2009

Journal for Aesthetics and Protest, Coop 57: Interview, Issue 7: Go Post-Money, by Amy Franceschini Free Soil Reader, Cooper Union Limited Edition of 100 edited by Amy Franceschini

TELEVISION/ RADIO 2009

60 Minutes. Victory Gardens: Alice Waters’ Crusade for Better Food: San Francisco Victory Gardens

TEACHING 2019-23

Free University of Bolzano, Graduate Program, Eco-Social Design

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Acknowledgements

California State University, Stanislaus Dr. Ellen Junn, President Dr. Kimberly Greer, Provost/Vice President of Academic Affairs Dr. James A. Tuedio, Dean, College of the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences

Depar tment of Ar t Martin Azevedo, Associate Professor, Chair Tricia Cooper, Lecturer Dean De Cocker, Professor James Deitz, Lecturer Daniel Edwards, Associate Professor Patrica Eshagh, Lecturer Jessica Gomula-Kruzic, Professor Daniel Heskamp, Lecturer Chad Hunter, Lecturer Dr. Carmen Robbin, Professor Ellen Roehne, Lecturer Dr. Staci Scheiwiller, Associate Professor Susan Stephenson, Associate Professor Jake Weigel, Associate Professor Mirabel Wigon, Assistant Professor Meg Broderick, Administrative Support Assistant II Kyle Rambatt, Equipment Technician II

University Ar t Galleries Dean De Cocker, Director

School of the Ar ts Brad Peatross, Graphic Specialist II

Futurefarmers: A Soil Procession March 21–May 6, 2022 | Stan State Art Space, California State University, Stanislaus | 226 N. First St., Turlock, CA 95380 300 copies printed. Copyright © 2022 California State University, Stanislaus • ISBN 978-1-940753-66-9 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the publisher.

This exhibition and catalog have been funded by Associated Students Instructionally Related Activities, California State University, Stanislaus.

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