An illustration for a Polish Gazeta Wyborcza article on Solarpunk (2022), imagining a postcard from the future.
Barbórka is a holiday celebrating the miners of the Silesia region, the identity of which has been tightly connected to (mostly coal) mines for centuries and which has been very slow to reinvent itself in face of Climate Crisis.
The postcard imagines a future in which Silesia doesn’t abandon its culture, language or traditional outfits - but focuses on wind energy instead. Over the decades of the shift Silesian could become the unofficial language of the wind turbine technicians across Europe - and Barbórka could change into the Day of the Wind.
While it’s not a definite proposal of a region’s new identity, it’s a prototype of a possible future that Solarpunk can offer, allowing us to see that more tomorrows are possible!