2050 - what will it be like?

We heard about a competition from Low Energy Demand Futures in which it asked us to consider what life would be like in 2050.

We started talking about our different visions and decided that if we met for a solar artwork making session at the Environment Sustainability Institute (ESI), in Cornwall, something magic would happen that might lead to an entry!

In the solar research lab at the ESI we up-cycled our left over pieces of Solar cells from previous projects.

Chloe mixed our solar art making techniques to create a shield, a shield to protect us from the climate emergency at the same time as making energy.

Using hands to make an art work, allows our minds to go to new places in re-imagining the future.

Here is Chloe’s developing piece, a hybrid of previous artworks, but holding the energy of the future. Her vision for 2050 included driverless vehicles, recycling and up-cycling rare elements for new technologies, the meaning of low carbon living. The conversations turned macabre with the acknowledgement that even humans were rich in carbon for fuel!

Katie’s piece revealed an eye to the future, her solar concentrator research gives her some optimism for a future with new technology that could harness the sun’s energy thousands of times more efficient than at present.

We agreed that the solar concentrator is an artwork in itself!

Naomi working on mosses and a landscape. Her vision for 2050 was one of legacy from our actions in the present. If more people became resilient to a changing landscape, were able to restore and regenerate nature, living things would survive for longer.

When imagining the future our conversations fluctuated between the best and the worst outcomes, we invented new narratives that shaped our expectations.

Jenny chose to imagine a utopian world with low carbon living, a home powered with nature, solar and wind. She found it understandably hard at times to think of the future for her children.

Jenny managed to complete her solar panel and in the process we were reminded of ideas to produce window based artworks. We love seeing the land through this and the sky in the image below.

Jenny’s finished artwork

We’ll wait to see what the Low Energy Demand Futures thinks of our day of conversations and making and of Jenny’s artwork!

For us it gave precious time to use our imagination, reconnect with making new solar art and think about our legacy in the face of the climate emergency.

We concluded that being courageous was at the heart of keeping an optimistic outlook to continue making art and taking action.

(Since writing this blog, we’ve received the news that Jenny’s artwork has been shortlisted for the next round of the competition! Watch this space for more news!)