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Solarpunk is a literary, artistic, and social movement, closely related to the hopepunk movement, that envisions and works toward actualizing a sustainable future interconnected with nature and community. The "solar" represents solar energy as a renewable energy source and an Optimism vision of the future that rejects Doomer, while the "punk" refers to do it yourself and the Counterculture, Post-capitalism, and sometimes Decoloniality aspects of creating such a future.
As a science fiction Literary genre and art movement, solarpunk works to address how the future might look if humanity succeeded in solving major contemporary challenges with an emphasis on sustainability, human impact on the environment, and addressing climate change and pollution. Especially as a subgenre, it is aligned with cyberpunk derivatives, and may borrow elements from utopian and fantasy genres.
/ref> Both genres create and consolidate post-industrial countercultures; Solarpunk incites rebellion through its depiction of protoenvironmental socioecological relationships, whereas Cyberpunk advances the theme of rebellion through detached secondary environments, which often takes place in tangible dataspheres, virtual landscapes, and dystopian urban environments. Solarpunk draws inspiration from Bohemian style. The convergence of environmentalism and art serve as a framework for both subgenres. Solarpunk's interpretation of social collectivism strongly contrasts the individuality of Bohemian counterculture; Solarpunk recognizes individuality as an integral component of progressivism and identifies sociocultural distinctions as an impetus for change, though solarpunk encompasses these elements within the greater socioecological scaffolding in a manner that contrasts the Bohemian assertion that individuality alone acts as the sole impetus for change.Wilson, Elizabeth. "Bohemian dress and the heroism of everyday life". Fashion Theory 2.3 (1998): 225-244.
After visual artist Olivia Louise posted concept art on Tumblr of a solarpunk aesthetic in 2014, researcher Adam Flynn contributed to the science fiction forum Project Hieroglyph with further definition of the emerging genre. Based on Flynn's notes and contributions on the website solarpunks.net, A Solarpunk Manifesto was published in 2019. It describes solarpunk as "a movement in speculative fiction, art, fashion, and activism that seeks to answer and embody the questions 'what does a sustainable civilization look like, and how can we get there?. In 2024, solarpunk entered The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Here, James Machell points to Songs from the Stars by Norman Spinrad as the subgenre's first text, and goes on to contrast solarpunk with cyberpunk, stating, "It is a rebellion against a rebellion, born out of dystopia fatigue."
Solarpunk is more similar to steampunk than cyberpunk. Both steampunk and solarpunk imagine new worlds but with different primary sources of energy; respectively, the , and renewable energy. Though, whereas steampunk focuses more on history and uses Victorian era aesthetics, solarpunk uses more Art Nouveau style and looks to the future. Solarpunk also shares some elements with retrofuturism, Afrofuturism, Bionics and Arts and Crafts. The retrofuturist reevaluation of technology, its desire for understandable mechanics, and rejection of mysterious black box technology, and in favor of appropriate technology, are found in solarpunk works. As is the Afrofuturist's counter to mass-cultural homogeneity, the reckoning of injustices, and use of architecture and technology to correct power imbalances and problems in accessibility.
The solarpunk visual identity, as expressed by Olivia Louise and subsequent artists, is compared to Art Nouveau with its depictions of plants, use of sinuous lines like whiplash, and integration of applied arts into fine arts. The ornamental Arts and Crafts movement, an influence on Art Nouveau, is present and its built forms reflect Frank Lloyd Wright's organic architecture. The solarpunk aesthetic typically utilizes natural colors, bright greens and blues, and allusions to diverse cultural origins. Examples of this aesthetic include Boeri Studio's Bosco Verticale in Milan, the depiction of Wakanda in Marvel Studios' Black Panther and Auroa in Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint, 's Green Cities expansion, and some Studio Ghibli movies, particularly Castle in the Sky and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
In contrast to cyberpunk, which is portrayed as having a dark, grim aesthetic surrounded by an artificial and domineering built environment reflective of alienation and subjugation, solarpunk is bright, with light often used as a motif and in imagery to convey feelings of cleanliness, abundance, and equability. However, light could alternatively be used to symbolize something that "subsumes everything beneath it, an emblem of tyranny and surveillance".
Previously published novels that fit into this new genre included Ursula K. Le Guin's Always Coming Home (1985) and The Dispossessed (1974), Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia (1975), Kim Stanley Robinson's Pacific Edge (1990), and Starhawk's The Fifth Sacred Thing (1993), largely for their depictions of contemporary worlds transitioning to more sustainable societies. However, the first explicit entries published into the genre were the short stories in anthology Solarpunk: Ecological and Fantastical Stories in a Sustainable World (2012) (which was the third part of the publisher's trilogy of short story collections preceded by Vaporpunk and Dieselpunk), Wings of Renewal: A Solarpunk Dragons Anthology (2015), Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation (2017) and Glass and Gardens (2018). In 2018, author Becky Chambers agreed to write two solarpunk novellas for Tor Books and published A Psalm for the Wild-Built (2021) and A Prayer for the Crown-Shy (2022).
In a 2019 Slate article, author Lee Konstantinou stated that solarpunk authors "...proclaim their commitment to "ingenuity, generativity, independence, and community", while going against the "nihilistic tendencies of cyberpunk and the reactionary tendencies of steampunk." He argues that solarpunk is aspirational, as it aims to provide "suggestions for the kind of science fiction or fantasy we ought to be writing". Solarpunk can include elements of mundane science fiction. In a Solarpunk Futures interview with Nina Munteanu about her solarpunk novel A Diary in the Age of Water, Munteanu said she incorporated elements of mundane science fiction to add "the gritty realism of the mundane" to the story.
Fiction
Literature
In literature, solarpunk is a subgenre within science fiction, though it may also include elements of other types of speculative fiction such as fantasy and utopian fiction. It is a cyberpunk derivative, contrasted to cyberpunk for its particular extrapolation of technology's impact on society and progress. Cyberpunk characters are typically those marginalized by rapid technological change or subsumed by technology, while the solarpunk archetype has been described as a "maker-hero" who has witnessed environmental disaster or failures by central authorities to adapt to crises or injustice, often in defense of nature and in ways that allow the story to illustrate optimistic outcomes. Its fictions illustrate feasible worlds that do not ignore the mechanics or ingredients of how it was arrived at.
Film
In a study of the 44 most popular American science fiction films, nature was found to be ignored in visions of the future, depicted in cities with monoculture lawns and ornamental gardens. Nature is never portrayed in these films in an innovative or integrated way with future human civilization. At best, nature is simply portrayed as a background motif. The study suggested for artists to "collaborate to imagine how to integrate nature and biodiversity into the depictions of future cities".
Criticism
Some, like solarpunk researcher Adam Flynn, worry that solarpunk can risk being greenwashed through aesthetics that give the appearance of sustainability without addressing the root causes of actual environmental issues. Flynn characterizes depictions such as luxury condominiums with that price out existing communities and may ultimately cause greater environmental harm as examples of "fake solarpunk urbanism".
See also
Further reading
(2026). 9781350010970, Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 9781350010970
(2026). 9781316512166, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781316512166
(2026). 9781952271502, West Virginia University Press. ISBN 9781952271502
External links
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