Imagine a world of green and sun. Not grassy fields, but densely packed buildings with large windows and trees weaving in and out of the architecture. Mossy sidewalks next to river roads, and coffee shops with ivy-covered facades.
Today I would like to talk about Solarpunk.
Solarpunk is a future-predictive aesthetic, looking at where one would like the world to go. Out of the punks, you have cyberpunk, steampunk, and others alongside solarpunk. Like all aesthetics, this deals with the subjectivity of how to conceive reality. This subjectivity deals with how technology develops, rather than aspects like clothing and room design (think Fairy Kei and Dark Academia respectively).
Solarpunk art also tends to be a little cluttered
This particular aesthetic looks at a world where humanity develops into a more sustainable form. Nature and buildings seamlessly transition, and rivers cut through cities as a primary form of transport. It takes ideas from the past and integrates them into now, while not excluding how we can improve without disrupting the flow of nature. Instead of covering rivers with bridges for cars, only human-sized bridges which are tall enough for boats to pass. Instead of dark concrete buildings, there are buildings of glass and steel or brick, with trees inside and out to create bright green landscapes. Many concepts look like Venice, Italy (or Water7 if you have seen One Piece). They also tend to have a lot of Japanese inspiration, but I am not sure if this is a requirement or simply tends to be the artist(s) preference.
I am a gardener, as well as a developer. Technology and nature form my daily life. It is an enjoyable lifestyle, so it makes sense that I would be attracted to an aesthetic that looks like how I live. However, there is also a large spectrum of how Solarpunk can appear. Some of the themes I mentioned above are common through most conceptions, yet some are debated. Many see Solarpunk as Cottagecore adjacent, with more computers, technology, and farming tech. Others see it as a sleek, clean utopia with high levels of white steel architecture, and plants weaving in and out of buildings. Both can fit under the Solarpunk ethos but are yet at odds with one another. I will include images of both kinds for reference, but I am not here to discuss if one is better than another. I will say that I do prefer a more cluttered, less sleek Solarpunk.
An almost alien example of Solarpunk using sleek steel and glass.
So, why is Solarpunk important? To be frank, it is no more important than any other art. Something I like to keep in mind, however, is that conception creates reality. When I was young, my mother would often say “Science fiction predicts the world because people only research the capability of the sci-fi worlds people write of”. In the same way, how we view the future shapes the path we take to create it. In a way, this makes Solarpunk art the most important, because it is how I would like the future to look. Of course, I like my rainbow gamer gear and sleek blacks and whites, but I can love a world that looks a bit more antiquated, and a bit more green. After all, we can create individual spaces for the things we like that don’t quite fit.
A fantasy Solarpunk City of Glass and Steel
I’ve always loved plants, and I was exposed to plenty of them as a child. I grew up internationally, but my home base was a 1-acre plot of land in the middle of an orchard. Yet, I became a developer by trade, and my first dev job was in a room with no windows, fluorescent lights and tiny cubicles, and a literal chain link fence dividing the space in two. I know what a boring dystopia looks like, and I do not believe we would benefit from more of the same. Instead, adding more green and windows, while retaining the computers and technology would create a suitable reality for humanities next generations. Solarpunk embodies this reality, and that makes it an important addition to our conceptions of possibility.
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