Amy Franceschini, an internationally known artist and designer, will present the 18th annual Deem Distinguished Artist Lecture in the West Virginia University College of Creative Arts, on Thursday, March 8.

She will speak at 5 p.m. in the Creative Arts Center’s Bloch Learning and Performance Hall. The event is free and open to the public.

Franceschini received a Master of Fine Arts degree from Stanford University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from San Francisco State University.

She is currently a visiting faculty member at California College of the Arts and at Stanford University.

An overarching theme in her work is a perceived conflict between humans and nature. Her projects reveal the history and contradictions created by this divide.

Her solo and collaborated works have been exhibited internationally, including at the Walker Art Center, Whitney Museum, Museum of Modern Art, ZKM Center for Art and Media and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

In 1995, Franceschini founded the artists collective and design studio FutureFarmers. The design studio serves as a platform to support art projects, an artist-in-residency and research interests that challenge social, political and economic systems. Since opening, the studio has hosted more than 19 artists from eight countries.

In 2004, she also co-founded Free Soil, an international collective of artists, activists, researchers and gardeners. Together they work to create alternatives to social and environmental organization of space.

Franceschini is the recipient of Artadia, Cultural Innovation, Eureka Fellowship, Creative Capital, Guggenheim Fellowship and Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art awards.

The annual Deem Distinguished Visiting Art Lecture is made possible through a donation to the WVU College of Creative Arts from Alison and Patrick Deem of Bridgeport, W.Va.

For more information about the lecture, contact the College of Creative Arts at 304-293-4359.

See Franceschini’s FutureFarmers website at http://futurefarmers.com.

-WVU-

lb/3/05/12

CONTACT: Charlene Lattea, College of Creative Arts
304-293-4359, Charlene.Lattea@mail.wvu.edu

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