Solarpunk: Or Why We Need Utopias2/24/2023 Among the science-fiction genre there are many punks: cyberpunk, steampunk, dieselpunk, etc. But the one that has captured my heart is SolarPunk. I came across solarpunk while looking for a litmag to submit to. A short story called “Don Queerxote” in Hyphen-punk magazine showed me what hooping for a better future look like in a page. After reading the story about intergenerational knowledge and queer joy, I grew thirsty for more stories like it, unfortunately the litmag only had the one. Therefore I research more about this subgenre that found itself being an aesthetic. In the video “What is solarpunk?” by Andrewism I discovered that it wasn’t just pretty images of a world taken by nature but rather a social and artistic movement that focuses on imagining a better world in which prejudice, discrimination and contamination exist no-more. The movement is fueled by the hope that humanity will overcome our shortcomings and learn to coexist in peace between ourselves, other species, and our environment. An act of revolution if we consider how prominent catastrophizing in this day and age is. Unlike other ecologic movements and sci-fi genres, solarpunk doesn’t despise nor fear technology but rather see it as a tool to achieve change. This is especially true in the area of architecture, where different technological achievements like: Micheal Reynold’s earthships (a set of houses meant to be self-insulating found in New México), the Naaba Belem Goumma secondary school by Kere architects (made with materials original from the zone), Gardens by the bay of grant associates (which tried to emulate how nature builds itself), and COMUNAL, an architecture workshop which mission is to make the building process a collaborative effort based on the zapotec philosophy, Guendalizaa or mutual aid. Solarpunk is distinctly anti-dystopia because we are not only heading towards one but in some ways already live in it. Like poet Franny Choi says in an interview with PEN America: “Dystopian literature doesn't come out of nowhere; I believe it's a genre we inherit from the realities of racial capitalism. If I were being a little ungenerous, I would say dystopian literature has historically been a literature that uses the stories of subjugated people as the basis of a horror story for the privileged: What if everyone (not just people from the Global South) had to migrate to survive? What if no one (not even middle class white women) had reproductive autonomy? At best, dystopian literature helps us process the unfathomable realities of the present and imagine other ways of being. At worst, I think it can become a kind of cathartic fantasy that actually ends up making the lived realities of oppressed people less visible, by calling them sci-fi.” In other words dystopias do not work for fundamental change rather, they uphold the status-quo with a “it could be worse mentality”. Solarpunk works as an aesthetic, a literary genre, and a movement, as an inspiration for activism and conscious action. We need an idea of a better future, so that in difficult times, we can remind ourselves what we are fighting for. SolarPunk seeks to move past fiction and become a reality. To write for the solarpunk genre is to hope and make those words and inventions you’re writing true. And if you read In A Hundred Years… Speculations in Science Fiction Which Became True by Paula Argudo, you’ll how sci-fi has influenced (though others may say predicted) the future. We deserve a world, even if it is fiction for now, where suffering is not a requirement to being alive and we all have our specific needs covered in order to thrive. Ari Ochoa Petzois a Mexican-Venezuelan bi genderfluid writer. They like dancing to old music and history. In their free time you can find xem trying to coerce their friends to participate in another of their crazy projects.
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