Last year I participated in a Solarpunk Art Contest organized by Yishan Wong of Terraformation. I don’t have much experience drawing, and especially not in drawing cities, so taking a part in this contest stretched me in many ways. Still, I strongly believe that we need more positive visions of the future, and this was a perfect exercise in trying to clarify mine, which wouldn’t likely happen anytime soon if it wasn’t for the deadline.
The next time I take part in a competition like this, I’ll make sure to focus on people first, and only then set the stage around them. Most solarpunk art depicts giant buildings or transportways and the human scale gets lost. These are the hardest parts to imagine, and the most important ones. Where do people live? How do they spend their days? With whom? How do they dress? What’s most important to them? My initial goal was to show a lot of kids roaming together in the city gardens, but I ran out of time before I had a chance to add them in my picture. Still, I’m pretty happy with how it came out.
Make sure to check out the contest winners list, some of the entries there are absolutely amazing.
One response to “Dream City”
[…] I let people know about a problem, and why I spent my every free minute last October painting the dream city I’d like my daughter to grow up in. This is also why I encourage everyone to imagine their […]