BALTIMORE, MD.- The Contemporary Museum will be transformed into an evolving laboratory when the Future Farmers art collective creates The Reverse Ark: In the Wake, opening March 26, 2009, announced executive director Irene Hofmann. The exhibition will explore the social, historical, and environmental history of Baltimore's mills and textile industry through installations and experiences created throughout the run of the show. The Reverse Ark will remain open through August 22, 2009.

Using the concept of an “ark” as a place of preservation and exploration, the San Francisco-based collective Future Farmers will work with students from the Maryland Institute College of Art and community residents to create a multidisciplinary exhibition that is both art installation and educational forum exploring culture, science, and the environment. Future Farmers will use locally-sourced waste or surplus materials including fallen trees, hundreds of floorboards from abandoned Baltimore row homes, cast-off paper, and surplus clothing and textiles, to create an installation filling the museum that will illustrate the city’s industrial past.

The Reverse Ark will take shape during a series of public workshops beginning Saturday, March 21, 2009. Components will include two- and three-dimensional works of art, large site-specific installations, photographic and video documentation of the process of creating The Reverse Ark, and interactive experiences. Future Farmers will also present exhibition content online at www.contemporary.org.

To create The Reverse Ark, the artists spent four months researching Baltimore in collaboration with local scientists, researchers, and community organizations.

The Contemporary will engage the community by inviting organizations and individuals to host public programming, meetings, lectures, and activities related to the environmental themes of the exhibition. Groups are encouraged to host events in the museum throughout the duration of the show and can call Johaniris Rivera-Rodriguez at 410-783-5720 for further information.

The Reverse Ark will also feature a survey of past Future Farmers projects, including sculptural objects, portable experiment kits, and web-based works produced over the past decade. Founded in 1995, Future Farmer’s mission is to cultivate consciousness and understanding of the environment using a variety of forums, including art installations, workshops, lectures, and site-based research. The collective has been featured in more than 100 solo and group exhibitions in the United States and Europe.

Concurrent with The Reverse Ark, the museum will present two solo projects by environmentally-engaged Baltimore artists Soledad Salamé and Hugh Pocock.

Chilean-born, Baltimore-based Salamé will unveil her latest project Where Do You Live?, a 16-foot-long, eight-foot-high map illustrating environmental influences on the Maryland coastline. Created using Google Earth, the piece will pinpoint centers of high population and pollution, and differing levels of water quality along the coast. Where Do You Live? will be on view from March 26 until May 10, 2009.

Artist Hugh Pocock will observe the energy produced by the human body from food with sculpture, installation, and video. Approaching the subject as both scientist and artist, Pocock will determine the weight differential between the inputs and outputs of his body to explore the Earth’s natural resources, and man’s relationship to the production and consumption of energy.