Projection activist and solarpunk writer

  • 34 Posts
  • 116 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: September 15th, 2023

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  • Illustrator Bochica uses knowledge to make the world a better place, to help people express the utopia inside them. He is a social muralist, who supports war-victims communities in Colombia. Concerning the cover art, he wrote the following:

    *The technique used was mixed, acrylic and ink on canvas. Painting this piece was a real challenge—synthesizing and imagining a culture made of many ancestral cultures. The arch was inspired by art nouveau but also by Hindu art, while the figures reference both southern and northern Native American cultures. The pillars are like “totems” of Native American origin, but the figures are inspired by Indigenous peoples of South America and the South Pacific, from Easter Island, the Maori, through the Incas to the Mayans and Aztecs. These columns also reference the legend of “Huitaca” from the muysca people, which speaks of a demon who ascended and became the owl—a symbol of wisdom and knowledge in many cultures. In this case, I wanted to refer to the novel’s great library. The circles are inspired by the sun but are also inspired by speakers, referencing the “voice of the people” and social organization within solarpunk.

    At the top, there’s a kind of staircase inspired by the “chakana,” an Incan symbol representing the connection between the human world and higher realms.

    The mermaid is inspired by “Yemaya,” who is an Orisha or goddess in the Yoruba culture from Haiti.*


















  • I’m writing a story about San Francisco, where greedy fucks filled in the parts of the bay to sell more real estate. Now those areas are going to flood. Worse, toxic groundwater will rise there first and make it unlivable.

    To buffer the rest of the city against floods and toxins, I will portray wetlands restoration. What I’m not sure about is how wide an area the wetlands has to be.

    The solarpunk reason to engage with these sorts of swamp cities is that they contain lots of infrastructure and housing that you would hate to lose. Reusing existing buildings is more efficient than building new stuff from scratch, especially high rises.