I’m planning out a photobash (hopefully part of a set) showcasing options and possibilities for a more solarpunk world. My goal for these is for them to be a more practical and actionable view of a solarpunk society, more than just green skyscrapers or super scifi-looking places. I’m mostly setting these in a post-crumbles setting, with a focus on rebuilding in a more thoughtful and inclusive way. I want to try to illustrate solarpunk concepts and themes directly. 

I’ve done a co-op salvaging technology for reuse, and a high speed railway, and I’d like to take a shot at showing the places where people live next - just a street at a time, so not every scene will check every box, but I’d very much like to source ideas to include while I’m still planning layouts.

I’ve got a few different elements I’d like to include already (again maybe not all in one scene):

  • More colorful buildings, emphasizing buildings as a canvas for art from graffiti to commissioned murals
  • Lots and lots of trees. I like the idea of a street/path layout that provides each building with some kind of vehicle access (for firetrucks and ambulances and handicapped people, along with day-to-day things like moving trucks, large items deliveries, construction vehicles) while converting many roads to forested bike and pedestrian paths. At the very least, more tree-lined streets
  • Streetcars/streetcar cables overhead (emphasizing public transit)
  • options for a Third Place, where people can be outside home or work without having to be customers or tresspassers (I really don’t have any of these yet)
  • Alternate uses of existing structures and resources; I want to avoid the feeling of a scratch-built or utopian future. I’m currently working on a parking garage converted to living space with colorful facades between the concrete, and a farm, park, or forest (I haven’t decided yet) on the roof
  • The tech salvage co-op from last time delivering a laptop or running wires, building a meshnet
  • Green energy, solar and wind in realistic locations (so not much wind in the cityscapes, I suspect) especially in a setting where infrastructure has been neglected and rebuilt
  • Alternatives to corporations, and an emphasis on society being run by and for regular people
  • Alternatives to cars; bicycles, rickshaws (pedal-powered and electric), 
  • Fruit trees, public gardens

If you have any additional elements, ideas for scenes/combos of elements, or specific ways you think things should be shown, and especially practical considerations, please let me know. It’s a lot easier to work those in while I’m planning rather than trying to work on it once layers are all tangled and perspectived.

It’s been awhile since I did proper full colors and textures photobashes, and I’m still working on the more loose/casual style, but I’m getting a bit better as I go, I’m happy to take ideas.

Also, I’d also like to do some more non-city scenes, rewilding, smaller communities linked by public transit, but don’t have any specifics yet.

  • AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net
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    1 year ago

    I want to see disabled people, and also generally a world that’s more accessible.

    Way too often, disabled people are treated like acceptable casualties, by the left and the right alike. I split with my local climate activist group because the things they were pushing the local council to implement weren’t considering the needs of disabled people at all, and when I raised this as something we should consider, they outright said that they couldn’t let people like me be an obstruction for progress.

    I want to see a Solarpunk world because I believe that meaningful systemic change will only happen when we see disabled people and other marginalized communities as a source of wisdom, a sort of “stress-testing” that is necessary for making sure we’re building truly inclusive societies.

    I don’t have the brain for any more specific suggestions right now though

    • JacobCoffinWrites@slrpnk.netOP
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      1 year ago

      That’s definitely something I’m trying to build these scenes to include, especially as I work on cityscapes.

      After having a similar conversation on a picture of a cabin I reposted to /c/art, I modified this scene of mine https://slrpnk.net/post/1708554 to make the second rickshaw with the water tank electric, and made sure it’s the kind that uses motorcycle-style controls so someone could operate it without the use of their legs. The hope being to convey that the operator isn’t excluded from this project. As I start working on pictures of places where people actually live, I very much want to get this right.

      There’s a lot I don’t know (during that conversation I realized I don’t think I’ve ever been inside a house that would qualify as handicapped accessible) but I’m happy to listen. If you ever have any ideas/scenes you’d like to see realized, feel free to reach out, but it’ll be something I work at either way.