SOLARPUNK FUTURES:
Imagining Positive Eco-Futures with Art
Beginning ; Oil paint on canvas ; Havi Millar (2022)
Solarpunk Futures
Solarpunk is an emerging movement in speculative fiction, art, fashion, and activism that seeks to imagine and embody what a sustainable civilization looks like and how to build one. Solarpunk ideology contends that, as the climate crisis worsens, society needs more than just warnings, it needs solutions. It discards an apocalyptic framing of the climate crisis and replaces it with a post-nihilist paradigm for imagining positive futures, and, as its “punk” origins suggest, it centers the voices and contributions of those who have largely been excluded from the status quo–artists, queer people, Black and indigenous thinkers, etc. However, even though solarpunk was born—and must exist—outside the mainstream paradigm, unlike other “punk” genres (like steampunk and cyberpunk), it does not resign itself to a dystopian future, and it does not stand in angry opposition to the status quo; instead, it draws from Afrofuturism, queer imagining, and abstract art as a way of demanding radical imagining and bold commitment to change (Solarpunk manifesto). It keeps hope alive, even in the darkest of times, and asks us all to dare to imagine what might be possible.
Artist Havi Millar has composed a painting that embodies all of these themes in one: an earthy, heterogenous mix of colors and patterns---it almost resembles a satellite image of a distressed rainforest---with specks (glints?) of light which fill us with hope and remind us that a sustainable future is one that we can still choose to build. On first glance, the work might not seem to replicate stereotypical solarpunk motifs; instead, it seeks to push the boundaries of what constitutes solarpunk art, much like the solarpunk movement itself seeks to expand the set of solutions to the climate crisis. A discussion of this work and its implications is included here. His painting is titled ``Beginning" because it suggests that, as grim and hopeless as this moment may seem, we must start somewhere and there is always a ``glint of water [...] through the trees" to help light our path.
(excerpted from Tosca et al., (2023), in prep for Leonardo)
