Cultivating since 1994.
Co-op is a research and design cooperative that catalyzes critical issues into collective action. We are a net- work of designers, programmers, engineers, artists and scientists. What aligns our diversity of practice is a common interest in facilitating ideas, actions and movement towards a more just world. We actively collaborate with our clients to create engaging tools for communicating on many scales and media platforms. This can range from a hand-painted sign to a networked game. We calibrate our working conditions for each project.
Futurefarmers is a group of diverse practitioners aligned through an open practice of making work that is relevant to the time and place surrounding us. Founded in 1995, our design studio serves as a platform to support art projects, an artist in residence program and our research interests. We are artists, researchers, designers, architects, scientists 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. Science asks questions to find "answers" and seeks to find a methodology to answer the next question, while we ask questions to seek more questions. 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 and rural farming networks to visualize and understand their intrinsic logics. Often through this disassembly we find new narratives and potential reconfigurations that propose alternatives to the principles that once dominated these systems. Our work 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.
Collectively, we teach in the visual arts graduate programs at California College of the Arts in San Francisco, Mills College in Oakland, California and the joint masters program of art and engineering at Stanford University.
Amy is an artist and designer who creates formats for exchange and production that question the social, cultural and environmental systems that surround her. 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 often provides a playful entry point and tools for an audience to gain insight into deeper fields of inquiry; not only to imagine, but to participate in and initiate change in the places we live.
In 1995, Amy founded Futurefarmers and in 2004, she co-founded Free Soil, an international collective of artists, activists, researchers, and gardeners who work together to propose alternatives to the social, political and environmental organization of space. Amy's solo and collaborative work have been exhibited internationally at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the New York Museum of Modern Art and Walker Art Center. She received her BFA from San Francisco State University in Photography and her MFA from Stanford University.
Michael is an inventor and designer working in many media. He is the analog anchor of the studio. Michael has collaborated with Futurefarmers since 1997. Michael is dedicated to working in the community, Swaine's "Reap What You Sew" Generosity 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. Michael received his B.F.A. from Alfred University in Ceramics and his M.A. in Design from UC Berkeley. Currently, Michael is teaching at California College of the Arts and Mills College.
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 most recently soaring above the streets of San Francisco in a canoe mounted to the top of the Futurefarmers Volvo.
Lode Vranken has been practicing architecture internationally since 1993. In 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 Technolgy in Bangkok, Thailand. Lode co-founded the research coalition, De Bouwerij in Belgium that focuses on social living structures for passive houses, Cradle 2 Cradle buildings and zero
energy construction. His research is focused on new concepts for small, self-sufficient living units; folding buildings, kinetic structures, rolling shelters all with zero carbon dioxide emission.
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. His multifaceted and social-engaging work includes installation, video, performance, and sculpture, often created in collaboration with others. In 2009, Allende collaborated with Futurefarmers on the Reverse Ark: In the Wake at the Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, Maryland and on the People's Roulette for the Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture.
Cooley Windsor is the Futurefarmers eternal writer in residence and has graced us with his presence and work since 2009. Many of our projects have emerged from the writings of Cooley Windsor; The Reverse Ark I, The Reverse Ark 2 and This is Not a Trojan Horse. Cooley's seminal work, Visit Me in California has left an everlasting impact on us. Cooley teaches in the MFA Program at the California College of the Arts, and is co-director of the annual Meant to Be Seen Festival at the Eureka Theater in San Francisco. He was one of the founding board members of Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates, an environmental-justice organization focused on the southeast section of San Francisco. He is affiliated with the Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito.
Amy is an artist and designer who creates formats for exchange and production that question the social, cultural and environmental systems that surround her. 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 often provides a playful entry point and tools for an audience to gain insight into deeper fields of inquiry; not only to imagine, but to participate in and initiate change in the places we live.
Michael is an inventor and designer working in many media. He is the analog anchor of the studio. Michael has collaborated with Futurefarmers since 1997. Michael is dedicated to working in the community, Swaine's "Reap What You Sew" Generosity 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. Michael received his B.F.A. from Alfred University in Ceramics and his M.A. in Design from UC Berkeley. Currently, Michael is teaching at California College of the Arts and Mills College.
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 most recently soaring above the streets of San Francisco in a canoe mounted to the top of the Futurefarmers Volvo.
Lode Vranken has been practicing architecture internationally since 1993. In 1993, he received his masters in a UN Course on Human Settlements + Architectural Philosophy from the KU
