Futurefarmers: A r r a n g e

Futurefarmers is a collective working at the intersection of design, art, ecology, and human systems, through projects that utilize collaboration, dialogue, and play. Founded as a design studio in 1994, Futurefarmers slowly expanded their work into an artistic practice that incorporates technology, gardening, and civic structures. In the 23 years since, the group has worked with hundreds of specialists in various fields, creating a geographically dispersed network of artists and collaborators, and creating projects that aspire toward an improved social existence.

Highlighting key thematic threads within the collective’s work, Arrange acts as a small ecosystem—a microcosm of the Futurefarmers world—where art, science, design and the environment are intertwined. Its spirit evokes resistance to the typical retrospective exhibition model and also the collective’s interest in arrangement, organization, and non-hierarchical cataloguing structures. In this exhibition, art objects become props for the stories, interpretations, and phantoms of Futurefarmers’ past projects, acting as relics of dialogues, performances, and collaborations. The exhibition grasps the temporal and interstitial moments deeply rooted in the experience of Futurefarmers.

Organized by Arden Sherman, Curator, Hunter East Harlem Gallery; Gund Curatorial Fellows Marie Coneys and Kristen Racaniello; and Advanced Curatorial Certificate graduate students.

Futurefarmers: Arrange is made possible by the generous support of the office of the President at Hunter College; the David Bershad Family Foundation; the Susan V. Bershad Charitable Fund, Inc.; Arthur and Carol Kaufman Goldberg; and Agnes Gund in support of the Curatorial Certificate Program. This exhibition was developed in part over a semester curatorial seminar led by Arden Sherman and Paul Ramirez-Jonas.

About the Advanced Curatorial Certificate
Hunter’s Department of Art & Art History has long provided its graduate students the opportunity to work with faculty and our galleries’ professional staff on exhibitions of exceptional quality.  The new Advanced Certificate in Curatorial Studies builds on that tradition and the curatorial interests and ambitions of Hunter faculty and students—and our commitment to exhibitions whose themes, theses, and checklists have been developed and honed by our students. The program is designed to offer both a theoretical and historical grounding in curatorial practices and practical experience in exhibition organization and display and object research and preservation. Every student enrolled in the certificate program has the opportunity to work on an exhibition from inception to fruition, whether in the annual Curatorial Seminar or in faculty-supervised guided internships in the Hunter College Art Galleries or in museums and galleries beyond the College.

About Hunter East Harlem Gallery
Hunter East Harlem Gallery is a multidisciplinary space for art exhibitions and socially minded projects. Located on the ground floor of Hunter College’s Silberman School of Social Work at 119th Street and 3rd Avenue, the gallery presents exhibitions and public events that foster academic collaborations at Hunter College while addressing subjects relevant to the East Harlem community and greater New York City. The gallery seeks to initiate partnerships with publicly oriented organizations and focuses on showcasing artists who are engaging in social practice, public interventions, community projects, and alternative forms of public art. Since its inception in 2011, all exhibitions and programs at Hunter East Harlem Gallery are free and open to the public.