Solarpunk is a genre of speculative fiction that is also its own distinguished aesthetic, focusing mainly on renewable energy, living in harmony with nature, and the better future envisioned through both. Solarpunk also emphasizes handcrafted wares (as opposed to mass-produced products) and community. The 'punk' in Solarpunk comes from the genre's anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist nature, as well as its strong focus on community and prefigurative politics, which separates it from aesthetics like Cyberprep.
Solarpunk futurism is not nihilistic like cyberpunk and it avoids steampunk’s potentially quasi-reactionary tendencies: it is about ingenuity, generativity, independence, and community. At its core, Solarpunk is a vision of a future that embodies the best of what humanity can achieve: a post-scarcity, post-hierarchy, post-capitalistic world where humanity sees itself as part of nature and clean energy replaces fossil fuels.
The Solarpunk Manifesto may be found here. A reference guide for all things Solarpunk may be found at this link, and more content may also be found at r/solarpunk and on solarpunks.net.
Elements of Solarpunk
Everything from a positive imagining of our collective futures to actually creating it: 3D printing, afrofuturism, art, cooperatives, DIY, ecological restoration, engineering, fiction, futurism, gardening, geodesic domes, green architecture, green design, green energy, ingenuous indigenous practices, intentional community, maker spaces, materials science, music, permaculture, repair cafes, solar, solar power, sustainability, tree planting, urban planning, and volunteering (amongst other things).
Visual Aesthetics
The visual aesthetics of Solarpunk are open and evolving. They include a mash-up of the following:
- 1800s age-of-sail/frontier living (but with more bicycles)
- Creative reuse of existing infrastructure (sometimes post-apocalyptic, sometimes present-weird)
- Art Nouveau
- Hayao Miyazaki
- Jugaad-style innovation from the non-Western world
- High-tech backends with simple, elegant outputs
Media
Books
While Solarpunk is a relatively young literary sub-genre, there are stories that take place in a solarpunk world or contain solarpunk elements, as well as older novels that helped inspire the genre. There are also numerous non-fiction works that relate to Solarpunk culture and applications in real life.
- The Dispossessed (Hainish Cycle #6), by Ursula K. LeGuin
- The Word for World is Forest (Hainish Cycle #5), by Ursula K. LeGuin
- Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation, by Phoebe Wagner (editor)
- Parable of the Sower (Earthseed #1), by Octavia E. Butler
- Pacific Edge (Three Californias Triptych #3), by Kim Stanley Robinson
- New York 2140, by Kim Stanley Robinson
- Island, by Aldous Huxley
Films
- Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
- Princess Mononoke
Gallery
This gallery includes Solarpunk aesthetic samples, including animated stills, architectural renderings, and imaginative examples of Solarpunk fashion.
Real-World Examples
- Green Power House™, or GPH