Dream Farm Commons is an artist’s run exhibition and project space in downtown Oakland focusing on sculpture, installation, social practice, performance and experimental works
WE ARE EXCITED TO SHARE
an expansion into shared leadership anda whole new set of possibilities for the future. Dream Farm Commons is now held by
Ann Schnake, Charlotte Law, Ebti, Glenna Cole Allee, Jeremy Kirshbaum, Judit Navratil and Meghana Bisineer
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In January 2026, Dream Farm Commons entered a new era of shared leadership, co-led by a dynamic group of artists and thinkers, sharing curation, artistic production and programming.
In this new iteration DFC retains its core mission to provide a vital space in the arts ecology of the East Bay for artistic experimentation, social engagement, performance, gathering and discourse for our neighborhood and wider community. We would like to invite you to be a part of all that comes next!
About Dream Farm Commons
Dream Farm Commons is a small, artist run exhibition and project space located in a store front at 15th and Webster in Downtown Oakland. We make exhibitions, along with pop ups, dinners, workshops, performances, social practice projects, and mini residencies. The space was founded by three visual artists, Ann Schnake, Stacey Goodman and Robert Gomez Hernandez in May 2018. Ann stayed as a holder of the space while the group of working artists has expanded and contracted like an accordion-- Shout out to Jeremy Kirshbaum, Shilpi Komar, Jes Young, Carissa Clark, Daniella Nevel, Kico Le Strange ,Guillermo Galindo, Selby Sohn, Tosha Stimage, Cassy Thornton, Kathy King, Connie Zhang, Joseph Tanke, Kim Anno, Alicia Escott, Simone Bailey, Glenna Cole Allee, Olivia Cueva and the hundreds of other artists who made this space live between 2018 and 26!
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We remain as a generative resource providing opportunities for artists and audiences to engage their curiosity and foster community through culture and creativity. Beyond the gallery Dream Farm Commons continues to be a home to artist crits, film screenings, book clubs, dinners, talks, dance parties, sonic mediations and poetry readings.
And what does this mean, Dream Farm Commons? The Dream part of our name came from our idea of an artist’s role in dreaming into or foreshadowing new worlds and possibility; the Farm comes from our desire to stay grounded and productive; the Commons signifies our desire for this space to be larger than our individual practices and to be a site for gathering, big thoughts and shared space.
Being an artist run space means holding the realities of an art practice first and foremost, and being willing to morph and change for what is needed, including flexing from gallery into studio, performance, meal or workshop space and continual reinventions! For a long time we made monthly exhibitions; now we are thinking about sustainability and the long arc of conversation.
We are currently in an active August through December flurry of exhibitions: at other periods of time, DFC is functioning as an artist’s studio with slowly unfolding works. we are feeling into a rhythm of when the commons is live, with more movement, collective and individual works by other artists, and more formal programing and when it is artists work space.​
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As one of those through threads for this year, during quiet and busy times, we are holding exploration of subjectivity and world making as a focus, and hosting a feminist philosophy and art theory group,. Reach out if you are interested in these topics or have ideas of other small gatherings. .
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Negre, Simone Bailey 2019
Ann Schnake (she/her) is the original co-founder of Dream Farm Commons and a visual artist who builds installation and sculptural works as the activation of objects, space, ideas and people. Ann was a nurse for many years, and the memory of this labor is her phantom limb.
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Charlotte Law (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist who plays with manipulated and self-made instruments, costumes and immersive installations for speculative and collective voyaging. Charlotte is co-founder of Upstream
Ebti (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist, a photographer and a translator living between Cairo and San Francisco. Alongside Dfc, Ebti is part of “Right window” & “Off Hours” collectives and is on Southern Exposure’s curatorial council.
.Glenna Cole Allee (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores the shifting relationships between place, myth, and memory. Allee co-founded the curatorial project MicroClimate Collective, a recipient of the Alternative Exposure Grant from Southern Exposure
.Jeremy Kirshbaum (he/him) hopes to find new ways of thinking and feeling for himself and others through poetry, performance, and emerging technology. He conducts experiments to explore whether the future could still have collective agency.
Judit Navratil (she/her) is a transdisciplinary artist, educator and curator working with social VR and extended reality in balance with her embodied practices like long distance somersaulting and tent flying. She is the founder and curator of VR Art Camp and Folding Fields
.Meghana Bisineer (she/they) is an Indian-born artist, curator and educator, whose multiform works traverse experimental animation, drawing, installation and performance. Meg is co-founder and curator of Eyewash Experimental Animation Salon and Upstream.
Visit us at 349 15th Street
between Wester and Harrison in downtown Oakland
DFC is open on Fridays and Saturdays 1-6PM and by appointment but check the right now page to confirm hours-- we stay flexible! Email info@dreamfarmcommons.com if you would like to visit or for more information.
To join our mailing list for upcoming events, send an email; follow us on Instagram @Dream Farm Commons.
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To make tax deductible donations to Dream Farm Commons visit here
Or donate directly here
Artwork clockwise from top: Ann Schnake, Hunter Franks, Stacey Goodman, Cassie Thornton,Shisi Huang