LET US HARBOUR OPTIMISM

“We have a distributed landscape of doubts and optimisms that keeps the vessel going”

Amy Franceschini’s work with Futurefarmers, the collective of artists, activists, farmers and architects she founded in 1995, draws on dense­ly knitted imaginaries which relate the past and the present to inspire the future. Her practice spans public art, exhibitions and publications, and her media can be anything, from a field of grain or a radio signal to a sailboat. On a summer day via video call from Munich to Ghent, we talked to Amy about optimism and its potential to unlock our imagination and open up roads to a better future.

 In our conversation, she took us with her on the sea voyage she undertook in 2016/17 from Oslo to Istanbul, with a rotating crew on board ‘to draw attention to the genetic erosion of the world’s seed stock’. As she recounted the workings and makings of Seed Journey, she interwove her account with personal observations on how optimism enters into her work, how it emerges from it, and how it is more easily sustained within a group.

AMY

FRANCESCHINI