Solarpunk | Imagine a better world

In 2020-2021, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, visual arts teacher Mélissa Nadeau asked her students to create an autobiographical work to explain what they were feeling. To show young people that they were not alone in going through troubled times, Mélissa invited schools from all over the world to take part in this major project, which she called Diagnostik. What came out of it was very beautiful, but also “very dark”.

Catherine Handfield
The Press

For the second edition of the project, this year, Mélissa wanted to go elsewhere, towards something more positive, more luminous. Searching the internet, she discovered Solarpunk. And that’s exactly where Melissa wanted to go.

At the same time a movement, an artistic genre and a literary genre, Solarpunk imagines a world where humans live in harmony with nature, using technology, yes, but to live better, to build a sustainable future. Solarpunk is therefore the opposite of the dystopias that are often used when it comes to imagining the future.

Mélissa Nadeau invited the students to draw inspiration from the Solarpunk universe to create a work (painting, drawing, digital drawing) that presents an optimistic vision of the future. The project is called this year Projexion. Around 60 schools from 18 countries take part.

This week, at Curé-Antoine-Labelle school (where Mélissa teaches), fourth-grade students finished their creation in their arts and multimedia class. Sitting at the computer, Marie-Rose Labelle was fine-tuning the final details of her imaginary city, where the greenery thrives and the houses are all interrelated. “Right now, everyone has their own house, everyone does what they want, and that may not be ideal,” says the 16-year-old girl, who dreams of a greener world.

In Samy Mizi Allaoua’s creation, the water level has risen, but humans have created a small green oasis on an island in the middle of nowhere. “Nature has grown back and people are living again,” says Samy.

A recent movement

Solarpunk is a recent genre. The first documentable trace dates from 2008, on a blog, and the first literary work was published in 2012 in Brazil. The movement has gradually gained momentum, mainly on the internet.

Montrealer Félix-Antoine Renaud has been interested in it for a few years. In September, he will undertake a master’s degree in literary studies on the representation of the environment in Solarpunk literature and on what Solarpunk could be in Quebec.

Unlike other sci-fi genres (like Cyberpunk and Steampunk), there’s something very current about Solarpunk, Félix-Antoine Renaud notes: Solarpunk stories could be set in the very near future. Ways of doing things that already exist are considered Solarpunk, he says. We can think of community gardens on the roof, passive habitats or even sailing cargo ships. The No Mow May campaign, which invites people not to mow their lawns in May to help pollinating insects, also has something Solarpunk about it, adds Félix-Antoine Renaud. Gender also offers a reflection on the place of work in our lives.

When she heard about the movement, visual artist Patima (real name Patricia Lapointe) realized she was a Solarpunk without knowing it. Patima – formerly a professional makeup artist – is finishing her studies in horticulture. She lives with 16 roommates in a bicentenary house where a community garden is cultivated.

Patima has forged ties with the Solarpunk community online. “It’s a movement that really does the soul good,” says Patima, who sees it as a form of “radical hopeful thinking.” “The conversation of the last 10 years, especially on TV and in film, is always the apocalypse, the end of the world. How can we make concrete changes in the present if we are in despair and we are convinced that everything is going badly? says Patima, who is working on a Solarpunk magazine to inspire people and bring the community together.

By his way of life and his life choices, Patima recognizes himself as much in the “solar” element (the luminous side) as in the punk element, the punk philosophy being associated with all the militant, anti-capitalist, revolutionary and do it yourself.

According to Félix-Antoine Renaud, Solarpunk is located on the axis of the left, but the political vision varies from one sympathizer to another. Anarchist individuals can make Solarpunk gestures, so can socialist individuals, he says. “With the term punk, we are in denunciation, rebellion, but the level to which we push this rebellion will be specific to each person. »

Teacher Mélissa Nadeau, for her part, did not address the political dimension in her project. What interested him was the aesthetic aspect, of course, but perhaps above all its utopian side. “It’s beautiful and it’s big, what young people have to tell us,” she said. And living a little in utopia is good. »

The works of the Projexion project will be unveiled on June 15. They will also be included in a screening that will be presented at the beginning of November at the NUM festival in Laval.