Our Story

“Technology should reflect who we are,
not define who we are.”

Two women playfully walk alongside an AR model in black, white, and red swirls.

With decades of experience curating immersive artworks, public events, digital programming, and gastronomic pop-ups, Future Arts brings together local and international historically underserved creative talent to enrich and enliven Seattle neighborhoods and evolve global networks.

Future Arts artists holding the word "crush" at the debut of Cut, Crush, Decay.

Our Mission is to build interdisciplinary programs and accessible public INITIATIVES for underserved artists working with technology.

Our Vision is to pioneer a dignified creative economy and culture of diverse thought, rooted in sustainable practices.

FUTURE ARTS — ·
Where art and technology create synergetic spaces to collaborate,
innovate, and break the systems that bind us.

Where our ancestors come to share and our children come to listen.

These borderless connections are safe,
Welcoming of voices that have not been heard in way too long,
Reflecting who we want to become.
Here, we push technology to the limits of its capacity
in order to save the planet,
build radical social bridges,
create dignified jobs for the arts

& come back home,
together,
again & again — ·

MANIFESTO

Image of a robot playing the drums on a painted bucket, while the artist is interviewed in the background.

ANCIENT TECHNOLOGY (NATURE) AS “QUEEN”

A fluid, yet structured strategic approach
Future Arts is powered by Emergent Strategy and biomimicry principles. We look to our most ancient technology, nature, to guide the design and development of the pathways and platforms we pilot and develop. Mycelium’s immense resource sharing structures, the way trees protect each others’ roots, dandelions’ resilience to cross-pollinate new ideas. We interrogate and aggregate new technologies in new ways that center human qualities, empathy, compassion, curiosity, diversity - from synthetic biologies, to cybernetics, asking each other — who are you and why are you? Most importantly, how do we not lose the sense of who we truly are to create an abundant future for our communities.

At Future Arts, technology does not define us, it reflects us. Technology does not shape our essence, but is a mirror of our shared human values, behaviors, and passions. The way we design, use, and interact with technology reveals a lot about our collective and individual artistic identities.

Several people sit on a stage for a town hall discussion of arts and technology.

BRIDGING THE Arts-TECH WAGE GAP

Our organization is built from Seattle’s extensive Creative Economy Research and resulting needs from the community.

Seattle’s creative economy contributes $119.2 billion to Washington state’s GDP. That’s 10.3%, the largest in the nation. The creative economy employs more than 180,000 workers. What makes it unique is almost 50% of its occupation are labeled as “Creative Technology”. The rest fall in categories like Architecture, Fashion, Culinary Arts, and Performing Arts.

…and yet, artist’s wages are not reflected by this impact.
“Computer” occupations are paid 5 times more ($48.88avg) than “Artist” Occupations ($11.87avg), even though they are working the same technology, artists having to consider a wider range of skills -making it the highest wage gap in the Unites States.

(Source: There’s Something About Seattle, City of Seattle Report, Page 33)

View Past Projects