The goal of AFAAB is to preserve both the spirit and the structure of the AFAAB building (aka the Visual Arts Building, Toaster, Art Barn, or “Old Art Building”) and to provide a dynamic and creative physical and virtual creative space for the Antioch College community. We are “punk preservationists”. We seek to approach architectural preservation with an irreverent, DIY, and community-focused ethic that mirrors the ideals of Antioch College, a longstanding bastion of radical pedagogy and progressive politics.The Ant Farm Antioch Art Building Creative Preservation Initiative (aka ‘AFAAB’) was initiated by Catalina Alvarez (filmmaker and former Antioch College faculty member in the Arts division) and Liz Flyntz (designer, curator, Antioch alum and Antioch Visiting Artist) in early 2020 at the height of the pandemic lockdown. Later Flyntz and Alvarez were joined by Tim Noble (Antioch alum, architectural researcher, and sculptor).
Many Antioch College students have been instrumental to this project including Leander Johnson, Ty Clapsaddle, Lola Nelson-Betz, Michael Perea, Oren-Andrew Wentzel, Zoë Johnson, Rosemary Compton, Ryn McCall, and Tennyson Love. We’ve been helped by artists, architects, researchers, and historians including Michael Casselli, Scott Sanders, Giorgia Aquilar, and Victoria Keddie. The AFAAB structure was designed by Doug Michels and Tom Morey (members of the radical architecture, media art, and design groups Ant Farm and Southcoast, respectively) in 1971. It was designed to be built quickly and cheaply using off-the-shelf industrial materials, and to provide flexible teaching spaces that would allow different artistic disciplines to “intermingle”. The look and feel of the building is a vibrant, bright, Neo-Bauhaus workshop, with a huge gallery space, print studio, painting studio, and ceramic space surmounted by classrooms, screening rooms, and a fourth floor of lofted open individual studios. The exterior walls of the first floor are garage doors that open on all four sides to allow large artworks to be moved and light and air to pour into the space.
