Solarpunk: Crafting Futures with Resiliency workshop
Practice creating optimistic speculative fiction narratives, to spread sparking imagination and motivation to actualize positive scenarios.
Workshop Details - When: 3 Tuesdays, December 2, 9, 16. Scheduled for 6 pm – 9 pm EST.
Applications required BY 12 noon EST Monday, Dec. 1!
Applying by Dec. 1 is strongly preferred, but if someone could only join for Dec. 9 or 16 I'll consider a later one.
Who: Accepted inspired applicants, solarpunk-curious or already familiar; max: 14
- note: Exploring building connections among participants ‘on the ground’ in Toronto, this can be hybrid and open to participants online too, joining synchronously at sessions.
Fee: Registration is $80 - $100 suggested, + $10 to go separately to Weave TO (convening organization), i.e $90 - $110 total for the series. Email me for questions on sliding fees. Attending all is recommended, but applying for one or two sessions is possible; individual sessions are $40 each.
Enrollees will get info to: pay via e-transfer (or Paypal if necessary) by 24 hours before first session (e-payment for the series is due by Mon. eve Dec. 1, 6 PM), or via cash by 15 min. before first session (i.e. 5:45pm) - if you will pay cash, email me to arrange meeting to finish payment pre-6 PM.
Where: Centre for Social Innovation, 192 Spadina Ave, between Dundas and Queen.
4th floor, The Wuttunee Room. There is an elevator, kitchenette, and whiteboard for use in the meeting room. It’s a secure building; keypad code will be sent for entry. https://socialinnovation.org/space/accessibility/ - For remote attendees, Zoom.
Prep: Bring your own writing utensils, paper, typing devices for writing exercises. There will be some research and drafting practice outside sessions, with proposal of spending 1+ hour weekly at this homework. We’ll use a structure for constructive feedback on enrollees’ newly drafted material, and aim for a respectful, flexible learning space.
Masking: in community with immunocompromised folks, during sessions I will wear an N95 mask apart from drinking/eating, and highly encourage attendees to also.
Attendance: Encouraged for all sessions; there is some progression in exercises. I can provide copy of loose notes outlining what I plan to present in a session, and enrolled peers are encouraged to also share captured notes to help anyone who needs a review.
AI Policy: Sessions may include presenting some visuals via laptop/projector screen of Solarpunk themed art/design, links to videos, audio recordings, essays, etc. Existing work we review may have included AI use in its generation; we will spend a bit of but limited time discussing choices to use these tools.
To create your own text- (or multi medium-) based narratives for our practicing purposes, and, to compile any summary of discussed material during sessions, enrollees are Strongly encouraged to do so independently without engaging an AI service. For questions re: enabling accessible practicing of writing or synthesizing activities, ask me.
What This Workshop Is About
Fictions centred on dystopian climate or dehumanized political scenarios can capture attention, and suggest desirable or livable futures are less possible. This series highlights benefits in intentionally crafting representations of achievable near or far futures, that we can feel good about next generations inhabiting.
A baseline definition of “solarpunk” this series starts with is: futurist fiction dealing with current ecological and geopolitical instability by imagining sustainable story-worlds. Solarpunk material can show up in all art forms: writing, visual mediums, clothing design, architecture, etc. This intro will primarily focus on writing, but participants can explore the option of creating material in other mediums too, if you can share with the group about your choices and respond to questions.
Any fictional format can be an outlet for “protopian” narratives (defined at https://protopianfutures.com/pages/what-is-protopia), including poetry, graphic novels, songwriting, theatre, tabletop and video games. This series will lead with examples from recent UK-, US- and CA-published collections of writing, and encourage participants to share examples they find in other formats too.
We’ll discuss the range of political angles and aesthetic approaches under the solarpunk umbrella, explore ways to serve each creator’s goals by illustrating scenes of resilience, and imagine human and other-than-human characters negotiating challenges of ecological and social repair.
Concerned about (Poly or) Metacrisis? This space aims to promote imagination sparking, build the muscle of representing desirable paths in the variety of topics we address, and illuminate steps to consider towards actualizing some features of the preferable futures we envision. It’s about crafting compelling narratives and ways to enable empowerment. Let’s explore, experiment, and dream big.
Outline (to be adapted as needed)
Week 1 - What is solarpunk? What concepts are we embracing, and questioning? A brief history on this emergent speculative sub-genre. We'll start a comparative review of different forms this approach can show up in, begin reading a few examples in poetry or short prose excerpts, and writing our own.
We’ll also spend some time discussing how elements and techniques in writing, or in composing “story” in other mediums, impact the story having a compelling quality, e.g.: use of sensory detail, rhythm and pace, patterns, contrast, omitting categories, lyrical language, metaphor, precise description, playful choices, character voice, etc. Exploring the evocative power in compressed forms, we’ll write haibun: short prose passages punctuated with haiku.
Week 2 - We'll focus on projecting narratives from the perspective of different versions of the self. i.e. exercises writing a near future scenario each participant would love enough that you'd want to run full-tilt toward it--written first from this current time and age, then from a perspective of yourselves as children, then from where your next aspirations may be, when five years older than now.
We'll get into projecting scenarios that a pre-teen age kid in your present life might run toward. What's valuable to this kid's character, and why? We'll expand desirable imagined vignettes to those of another kid, friends with the first. Then, we'll compose projections of chosen water, land, or air-dwelling non-human species — what turns of events could support their lives' sustainability? How could their prospective flourishing relate to your envisioned dimension/s of resiliency in your lives?
Week 3 - We'll build: practice imagining scenarios engaging with different aspects of social shifting than have been your main areas. e.g. if someone's main focus has involved climate care, ze is challenged to envision resilient developments toward community safety without police systems. We’ll be encouraged to project our characters in relationships with each other, and co-weave narratives detailing desirable emergences of shared futures. We’ll close with discussing ways to continue our world-building pursuits, and potential collaborations.
Note: for anyone interested but unable to join this Dec series, I’ll be iterating future hybrid opportunities; email me to be updated when next offered.
Apply BY 12 n, DEC. 1: https://s-quest.limesurvey.net/673396?lang=en
About the Facilitator [Note: pronouns sound like 'see' and 'hear']
seeley quest, a trans disabled environmentalist, arts and equity educator in Canada since 2017, previously in the San Francisco Bay Area 1998-2015, inaugurated a 2021 Quebec Writers’ Federation disabled writers’ workshop, “Solarpunk: Writing Futures with Resiliency” for Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia, and has led multiple multi-week arts workshops. So far sie’s published a play, poetry, essays, journalism, and a digital narrative game. More info is linked to hir bio at https://www.questletters.net/about/.