Imaginary Gardens: Solarpunk Illusions and Realities in the "Garden City" of Singapore

Abstract

By extending its vision in 2014 of building a sustainable state through the framework of a “Garden City”, Singapore has set itself up to become the world’s first “Smart Nation”. With a focus on energy and resource solutions, the city-state has heavily relied on state-driven technocratic interventions to create what Prime Minister Lee Hsien Long calls “meaningful and fulfilled lives” for all. This technocratic, human-centered development draws a parallel to “Solarpunk”, a model of environmental utopia. The Solarpunk genre gathers speculative fiction works which imagines post-transitional climatic utopias. This model draws ties to the concepts of circular economies, degrowth economies, and decolonization of energy. Inspired by energy and environmental humanities scholar Rhys Williams, it can be understood that the Solarpunk environmental model offers the elements necessary for ongoing global energy transition. It is important to note that Singapore’s current energy transition solutions, embedded in its Smart Nation vision, inform some Solarpunk imaginaries. Specifically, it utilizes an interdisciplinary method by conducting a close reading of both designer and governmental reports on two smart projects in Singapore: Gardens by the Bay and Jewel Changi Airport. It compares the aesthetic, design, purpose, and meaning of these structures to existing conceptions of Solarpunk. These projects embody Solarpunk in their aesthetic and ethos, but they are appropriated for uses and meanings that undermine this embodiment. While Singapore’s ecologically reflective solutions offer some climatic hope, they reaffirm the need to rethink the energy transition in the name of climatic justice, freedom, and environmental harmony.