>> So a few things.
One thing that we do at Future Farmers,
that's kind of a standard, is we quickly prototype things.
And we also just throw an idea on the table and say,
let's just try to make a prototype of it really quickly.
So we often make scrappy wooden prototypes or we perform something quickly to see
how we can embody an idea, what materials are needed, what other skill sets.
And that comes from design thinking background, I think, which for
me has been really helpful as an artist as well.
Especially working in public art context where
you have to work with a lot of different people and types of people.
And so that's one kind of, what we call it a studio secret, not a secret but.
>> Yeah.
>> It really helps because you can immediately be like this is never,
we need to really have the engine to make this pendulum work.
Or we need 20 people to lift this thing,
how are we gonna recruit 20 people to do something like this.
So that's one thing.
Another thing is, I always ask for advice and that's a more recent thing
because of the scale of our projects, and the politics around our project.
I've started lately to form kind of boards of consciousness,
or like conscience withing a group of people who I admire.
I ask them to be with me on the project, so that I can consult them and
make sure that I'm staying in check with my politics.
So for instance in Oslo, we were invited to do a permanent public art piece and
new waterfront development.
And for me, that's a charged situation,
it's this huge economic gentrification,
charged environment, especially in a city that I don't live in.
So I formed a committee of thinkers.
Neil Smith was a geographer, passed away a couple of years ago.
But Neil Smith, Kobe Metu,
a seasoned artist in Brussels who deals with intellectual property,
Kendrick Lugan, he's an urban planner and anarchist in Berlin,
teaches at Humboldt University, and Amy Belkin, artist from San Francisco.
And Amy Belkin wasn't formally on my committee, but she's a confidant.
And basically, I felt I needed to run the ideas that we were
having about making a public artwork in this context with people
who were hyper critical of this kind of a development project.
And it was interesting cuz I was on the fence.
Should we situate ourselves in this project or should we not?
And I was pretty impressed that everyone said, you can decide not to take
part in this project or you can do it and try to change.
And if you have one foot in this development,
you can then talk to people who maybe you never have a chance
to talk to like, bankers or mayors of the city, or
ministers of agriculture of Norway, we're talking with now.
So that gave me the confidence to walk into this new territory, or
territory that I was uneasy about.
So I think it's, I always say like, your network is
your nest egg, or your friends are your best allies.
And that's another kind of, it's not a secret but we really just depend on
the people we know, and try to keep those relationships really healthy,
so that we always have people to fall back on and ask questions, to.