West Hall
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180
USA
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, the design studio serves as a platform to support art projects, an artist in residence program and our research interests. They are artists, researchers, designers, architects, scientists and farmers with a common interest in creating frameworks for exchange that catalyze moments of “not knowing”.
While they collaborate with scientists and are interested in scientific inquiry, they want to ask questions more openly. Through participatory projects, they create spaces and experiences where the logic of a situation disappears – encounters occur that broaden, rather than narrow perspectives, i.e. reductionist science.
They use various media to create work that has the potential to destabilize logics of “certainty”. They deconstruct systems such as food policies, public transportation 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. Their 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. – http://www.futurefarmers.com/#about
Sponsored by Rensselaer, iEAR Presents, NYSCA, NEA, The Sanctuary for Independent Media