‘Stills From The Future’ by Valentina Almarza
MA Communication Design (2017-20)
Hochschule für Medien Kommunikation und Wirtschaft (HMKW), Berlin, Germany
Key supervisors: Jenny Bergström + Rasmus Giesel
Stills from the future is an illustrative approach to speculative design, depicting future scenarios of a world that surpassed all climate tipping points.
What will life be like in the future? In my master thesis, I pursue urgent issues that our society deals with at the moment, offering possible solutions which are embedded in a utopian world. My design concept takes a humoristic approach to the serious topic of climate change.
In a collection of colour-intensive illustrations and vector graphics, I show how science and technology could influence our lives in a positive way. However, I push the viewer to question the presented ideas and concepts, to take action and dedicate oneself to climate protection. So that the worst-case scenarios will never become reality.
The motivation behind this project is to contribute to people’s awareness in relation to this matter, but not in the way it has been massively communicated for the last few years. My intention is to depict possible futures in order to show that these changes might not be fully dystopian, enabling us to rethink and redesign the way we want to live. How will the way we live change with the excess of plastic, extreme weather, droughts, and wildfires? How will the way we build cities shift when whole towns have been destroyed as a result of flooding?
The first objective of this project is, to create awareness for the climate crisis, by sending a message to society with a twist: How will we live on this planet if we do not change our behaviour right now?
The second objective is to help people, especially teenagers suffering from eco-anxiety and depression due to Climate Change alarm, by showing them an optimistic message, a light to lead the way towards potential ways on how we can still live with the consequences of Climate Change.
Instead of paralysing with fear, this project aims to create a feeling of empowerment. Rather than focusing on creating concrete solutions to the problems we are facing, this project is meant to inspire and promote creativity. The speculative design approach is used as a tool to develop scenarios on how to design and build in the next years, in a world that surpassed all climate tipping points.
Valentina Almarza / MA Communication Design / (HMKW), Berlin, Germany 2017-20
I'm a 31-year-old designer from Santiago, Chile, with a background in architecture and communication design. I currently work as a product designer for a startup in Berlin. In my free time, I love drawing, videogames, lego, architecture, museums, and music.
science fiction, climate change, speculative design, urban design, sarcasm, illustration, communication design
