For practical inspiration, solarpunk looks to permaculture and Indigenous agriculture, sustainable architecture like Earthships and Arcosanti, as well as the maker movement and DIY culture. The future-focused inspiration has roots in the work of science fiction writers like Ursula K. Le Guin, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Octavia E. Butler, all of whom explore climate change, alternative economies, and equitable community in their work.
Grist, April 2022
As a lifelong science fiction addict, one who was turned on to the genre at age 9 when I stumbled across the dystopian visions of Harry Harrison’s Deathworld series and his inimitable hero, Jason dinAlt, it is with gusto that I introduce the contemporary trend that is solarpunk.
Solarpunk is a literary and artistic movement that envisions and works toward actualizing a sustainable future interconnected with nature and community. The “solar” represents solar energy as a renewable energy source and an optimistic vision of the future that rejects climate doomerism, while the “punk” refers to the countercultural, post-capitalist, and decolonial enthusiasm for creating such a future.
From wikipedia
Best described as a collective resistance to the gloomy dystopian visions of cyberpunk gurus Gibson and Sterling, and the current attempts by billionaires to abandon our planet in exchange for exploiting others in the solar system, solarpunk and its twin hashtag solarpunk aesthetic have emerged on to the global zeitgeist via less visible social platforms such as Tumblr over the past 12 months.
Following in the footsteps of its Steampunk and Cyberpunk predecessors, Solarpunk examines the relationship between radical advances in technologies — in this case renewables — and how they mutually reinforce the radical transformation of society. If the Cyberpunk of the 1960s and 70s – with its imaginary of a dehumanising high-tech future – served as a dystopian warning of the current path of decay under capitalism, Solarpunk presents itself as the solution. Though initially aesthetically similar to Steampunk, it orientates itself away from the nostalgia for lost retro-futures, towards what could be.
From Honi Soit
At the moment, I am still exploring this space to understand it better before writing further on it. However, what little I have read describes the aims and goals and visions of our own collective work as artists and designers striving to accelerate societal transformation towards more sustainable futures centered on the wellbeing of all living things in our shared planetary home.
The nascent Solarpunk movement, for example, imagines a green, economically just society emerging from a post-capitalist world. The Solarpunk ethos draws upon a broad cross-section of society, bringing together artists and writers with activists and community leaders. It’s a vision of democratised energy production via household solar and battery storage, and widespread recycling in a circular economy. I think we can already see the seeds of a Solarpunk future today, in the rising popularity of quaint community gardens and local co-operatives. These are the practical utopias we can build right now.
Honi Soit, April 2023
Utopias are all around us. We need only grasp them.
Featured image of sculpture by Johnson Tsang
