Studio visit: Farm Prod

Kurt Snoekx

14/11/2013

For the past ten years, the Farm Prod collective, armed with cans of spray paint and high doses of energy, has been transforming public space, shop façades, hotel interiors, and the occasional Chinese artist. We followed the abundant trail of paint across the city to the crew’s headquarters. From farm to factory!

“Life does its work. If you stay open and active in that energy, there are beautiful surprises awaiting you on the horizon,” Fred Lebbe – one part of the current, seven-member core of Farm Prod, along with Guillaume Desmarets, Arnaud Debal, Nelson Dos Reis, Alexis Corrand, Alexandre Alonso, and Piotr Szlachta – summarises the highly productive collective’s steady growth over the past ten years. The fact that the colourful gang does not shy away from tackling all seven of the capital’s hills at once has ensured that Brussels would simply not be the same place without Farm Prod. All fourteen of their hands avidly manipulate the city’s DNA, whether it be by organising the welcoming and dynamic Kosmopolite Art Tour, the creation of imposing collective murals in the public space, following in the footsteps of the peerless Franquin with a Marsupilami comic strip wall, the breath-taking update of the Horta metro station, or by camouflaging the Chinese chameleon artist Liu Bolin.

“Relax and get cracking,” could be their double motto. Atmosphere is everything. Guillaume: “Farm Prod is first and foremost a group of friends. We don’t just invite someone to join because they are a good painter. And it works: after ten years the collective still exists. There are some big personalities here, we laugh, we drink, and every now and again we scream at each other across the room... [Laughter] But we are and remain a family. Everyone has the freedom to do as they please. A number of us participate in every project, but we can’t all be everywhere at once. Fortunately, we don’t have to be. Our organisation is very spontaneous: we meet here at the studio to discuss our approach and who will do what. And beyond that everyone does their own thing.” Fred: “Farm Prod is at its core a human adventure. A tale of friends having fun together. What really counts is sharing, meeting people, forging friendships, tackling different projects. That is the foundation of our work. It opens doors and broadens your horizon.”

Over the past few years, that horizon has changed considerably, with the Farm Prod collective pulling out all the stops. Guillaume: “Yes, we’ve been incredibly busy! Especially last summer. We did a lot outdoors: festivals, murals, etc., which was great fun, but as a result we didn’t see the inside of our studio for about six months. We’re going to lock ourselves in now and concentrate on production. It’s going to be one hell of month!” That month is what separates Farm Prod from their big exhibition, opening 13 December at TAG City, to celebrate their tenth anniversary. All the spaces in the gallery will be filled with personal and collective works, both old and new stuff, and a photo exhibit – by our very own Gautier Houba, who has been the collective’s resident photographer for years. In other words, a retrospective in the true sense of the word, a glimpse into Farm Prod’s rich history. From farm to factory.

Guillaume: “We met while studying graphics at Saint-Luc in Tournai. There was a period when we all lived on part of a farm – hence the name – together, which we had turned into a studio, but afterwards we all went our separate ways. A year or two later, we found each other in Brussels and along with a number of other people whose paths we had crossed, we decided to launch the collective. Our first studio was in Hôtel Tagawa, the squatted hotel on Louizalaan/avenue Louise. We organised our first exhibits on the ground floor of that building. And gradually we started meeting more people and making more personal work, organising live painting sessions. And then we started painting the murals, works on big surfaces. That involved a lot of improvisation and the greatest possible mixture of styles. In 2010, we started the Kosmopolite Art Tour in Brussels, and that turned out to be an incredible launch pad. We met graffiti and street art artists from all over the place, legendary figures from the US, young Argentines… in all those years we’ve met over 300 artists, all from different horizons. It’s really a pivotal moment on our journey.”

Collaboration is one of the key concepts that holds Farm Prod’s universe together. Guillaume: “Graffiti departs from your own identity, your own name, your own characters. For us, the point of the live sessions was to mix things up as much as possible, instead of producing a patchwork of different styles. But our objective is never to annihilate the individual. Each of us has a particular style, their own particularity, and people who know our work will still recognise that. The first time we all made one big mural together was in Paris, on the Wall of Fame. We asked ourselves: are we each going to do our own thing and lose ourselves on this enormous surface, or are we going to opt for a joint project with a big impact? We chose the latter. On the other hand, there is no set recipe. You have to feel the energy in situ. You often arrive with a certain idea, see the wall, and then realise that you’ll have to do something completely different. So you quickly make a new sketch that doesn’t even look like anything initially, but does become the model for the whole wall. That adaptation and improvisation happens very quickly."

Arnaud: "That fusion is what produces the unity that’s called Farm Prod. Everyone has their own responsibility: someone does the background, someone else sketches the characters or draws the pattern…" Fred: "We are very complementary and we know each other well. We’ve been working together for a long time, so it’s all very natural. The improvisational energy is a huge asset because it enables us to work on very diverse projects. A lot of people know us as street artists, but that’s not how we think of ourselves. We really like the scene, and the possibilities the wall offers, but we’ve got our fingers in many more pies than that. The can of spray paint is merely our tool. It is all painting, after all!"

Looking at their work, it is striking how rich and diverse Farm Prod’s work is. Guillaume: "Exactly, every wall is different, and that’s what makes it fun. Because we work in different constellations every time, the results are always different, depending on the people who produce them." From nouvel art nouveau to groovy rhythms, from monumental colour explosions to subtle tones, but always with their finger on the pulse of the dynamic city. Guillaume: "Brussels is a great city. It’s incredibly vibrant, and the parties are great. [Laughter] Compared to Paris, which is far less personal, Brussels is small and accessible, a hotchpotch where you can easily meet people in a pleasant, relaxed atmosphere." Fred: "Brussels is a capital city on a human scale."

A while ago, the farmers have taken up residence in a factory. A merry chaos reigns in the collective’s studio in the Brussels Art Factory. This is where visions collide and spirits sizzle. Guillaume: “We’ve been here for a year and a half. We had a studio in Sint-Gillis/Saint-Gilles before, but over time we’d started approaching the limits of our possibilities there. Here we have heating, internet, and we’re in a pluridisciplinary environment where people work hard.” Arnaud: “Everybody pays rent to be here, so they’re not just here to mess around.” The Brussels Art Factory houses about fifty artists, an ideal base for a gang of jacks-of-all-trades who get all their energy from encounters. Guillaume: “Yes, it’s perfect here. It creates synergies: there are filmmakers, screen printers, etc. Incidentally, we’re collaborating with the screen printers to make a T-shirt celebrating our tenth anniversary.”

The members of Farm Prod each have their own corner in the studio, but it is equally important that the space is completely open. Guillaume: “Watching other artists work in their own particular ways is very inspiring. Each of us has their own style, but there are always things reflecting back; it is a beautiful delirium. Everyone sees one another’s method and reinterprets it, and that is clearly inspirational.” Arnaud: "Artists often work on their own, like hermits in their own little sanctuary. No easy task when you have to work on a canvas for thirty hours. Here we have immediate and spontaneous interaction and exchange; a real team atmosphere." Guillaume: "Let’s just hope that that is still the case in another ten years’ time.”

All photos © Gautier Houba
(www.facebook.com/gautierhoubaphotography)

Borough: Sint-Gillis/Saint-Gilles
Brussels Art Factory: www.facebook.com/BrusselsArtFactory
Exhibition: “10 Years Farm Prod”, from 13/12, wo/me/We > za/sa/Sa 12 > 18.00, Tag City, Tunnel Brabant passage Charles Rogier 23D, Sint-Joost-ten-Node/Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, www.tagcity.be
Info: www.farmprod.com / www.facebook.com/farmprod

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