Futurefarmers, an interdisciplinary art collective based in San Francisco, will present an evolving, ecopolitical-themed gallery exhibition and a week-long series of film screenings, lectures by scientists and related events.

Futurefarmers are the Pasadena City College artist-in-residence for 2008, marking the first time in the history of the college that the annual resident artist is a group rather than an individual. Futurefarmers will occupy the PCC art gallery with an evolving installation titled "The Reverse Ark, the Flotsam & the Jetsam."

Futurefarmers' wide-ranging work embraces corporate design commissions, gallery exhibitions, Internet-specific projects, video game design, community seminars, direct social activism and even their own artist-in-residence program.

The number of collaborators in Futurefarmers varies from project-to-project. For the PCC residency, the group includes Amy Franceschini, an artist and educator who founded Futurefarmers in 1995 (and co-founded another collective, Free Soil, in 2003); Michael Swaine, an inventor and designer who has worked with Futurefarmers since 1997 and Stijn Schiffeleers, a specialist in film, video and interactive installations who is also co-founder of Boutiquevizique, a new media collaborative in Belgium.

"Futurefarmers will work with students to create a workshop and laboratory for the building of the ark and a social space for learning and inquiry," according to Franceschini. "To us, the ark embodies many conceptual references; mass transportation, archives-memory-database, global warming. We tend to make projects that bridge the analog and digital worlds; thus, we will think about the ark as a memory bank, but also a cabinet of curiosities."

Futurefarmers will spend the week of March 14th through 20th on campus, during which time they will collaborate with students and organize a series of lectures, film screenings and other events. There will be a reception for the artists on Friday, March 14, from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. These events are free and open to the public. Call 626-585-7238 for more information. Pasadena City College is located at 1570 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena.

PCC's Artist-in-Residence Program

In 1987, Pasadena City College launched a program to bring prominent artists for a week-long stay on campus, where the artists interact closely with students, faculty, and the larger campus community. Through this program, PCC has hosted such celebrated artists as painters Masami Teraoka and Wayne Thiebaud, quilt-maker Faith Ringgold, illustrator and "futurist" Syd Mead, installation artist Alexis Smith and photographer William Wegman, all of whom also donated works of art to the college. These works are displayed in the college's Shatford Library and the George Boone Sculpture Garden.