AnthropoScenes
A Climate Fiction Competition
Climate scientists use models and graphs and maps to tell us what the world might be like in times to come – but telling us what life in those worlds might be like is the role of literary writing. In all of its forms and genres, fiction imagines and depicts the human – and, sometimes, the nonhuman – experience. In the case of climate change, stories can bring the abstract trends and statistics of climate science to life by presenting the manifold textures of the human perspective. Fiction making is an inherently speculative practice. Future-oriented fiction tasks us to conceive, anticipate and authorise subjective accounts of life being lived in circumstances different from our own. This isn’t (just) about new gadgets or dystopic disasters; it’s about the challenges of living in a world that, at present, we can only imagine.
But all lives are lived differently, and every perspective is unique: there is no “The Future”, but many imagined futures, plural and unevenly distributed in space and time alike. We believe that by surveying such imagined futures, we can learn a lot about the ways in which we might live in a warming world.
That’s why the Climaginaries research project in cooperation with the Narrating Climate Futures initiative hosted a climate fiction competition. Our aim was to curate a small collection of stories whose narratives depict and explore a climate-changed world!
The competition
Climate fiction is one way of representing climate change, and therefore one of the ways in which human beings understand, and relate to, one of the ongoing crises of today’s society. The position we have taken in this competition is that for a story to count as climate fiction, it is not enough that it deals with, or is about, a changing climate or environmental degradation. What should be in focus is anthropogenic climate change – that is, a changing climate which has been caused by human activities.
Climate fiction then, reflects and debates: why we are (or are not) afraid of global warming, why we should care about a climate breakdown, what we should do about it and how we should adapt. As of February 2019, we held a series of workshops (see below) that provided the participants with tools for creating a vibrant, climate-driven world of storytelling. We then encouraged them to submit stories within five broad categories: urban, rural, ecosystems, making and travel.
By the deadline for applications on August 15, 2019, we had received more than 40 stories from all over the world. They covered a wide range of topics with a wide array of characters. To give fair and equal treatment we scored them on five aspects: World building, Characters, Language, Rhetorical quality and Originality. The five winners scored well across the board, the jury does note that it was a close race and many stories made them think about climate change in a new way. The winners were announced in an online ‘gala’ with participants from several continents.
The winners
Anna Orridge with A reconciliation (Urban) for “its ability to disclose the existential implications of climate change through a subtly narrated family drama.”
Heather Elgar with Nets (Ecosystems) for “a beautifully written exploration of the complexity of responses to climate change and how shortsightedness occurs on several levels at once”
Cecilia Falkman with Glob av glas (Travel) for “the excellent portrayal of the difference between two generations in emotional response to a sustainability transition.”
Inas Hamdan with Skyskraper Reflections (Making) for “a moving story about the making of energy, which plays out in a world where the lines are sharp between the perpetrators and those affected.”
Andrew Villeneuve with An Acid Sea (Rural) for “the engaging illumination of the effects of ocean acidification on relationships, economies and communities.”
the e-booklet
Read all the winning stories in the e-booklet.
Contributions
We wanted to share as many of these stories as possible, so all participants were given the opportunity to post their story here (A-Z):
Adebisi Aademakinwa, In Search of River Owena
Cecilia Falkman, Glob av glas
Hannah Marie Hernandez, The Risk Manager
Daniel Nordström, En dag
Christian Rydberg, Födelsedagen
Hannah Scott, Monsters
Abdallah (Ekow Manuar) Smith, The Hand that Feeds You
Anya Verkamp, The Vine Underground
Sarah Wheedleton, Washington, Dome City
Jacqueline Zou, The Tree Donor
Categories
Urban
How will cities (and their inhabitants) change as people adapt to and mitigate climate change? And how will those interventions change infrastructure, social lives and politics?
Ecosystems
How are ecosystems and the “services” they provide valued in a climate-changed future? How do humans co-inhabit spaces with other species and how have non-humans been affected by attempts to mitigate climate change?
Rural
What function do rural spaces have in a climate-changed world, and how does it change the lives of those who reside there? What kind of food is appreciated and how is it grown in this future? How have interactions with “nature” changed?
Making
Production and manufacturing contribute to a large part of climate impact today, but have they successfully decarbonised in your future? How have those transitions changed people’s relationships to consumption, to each other and to nature?
Travel
How is mobility changing in a climate-changed world? Is enforced migration becoming a dominant feature people’s mobility patters? Is a new transport system emerging through low-carbon modes of transportation such as walking, cycling, electric scooters, car-sharing, public transport, and zero-emissions vehicles. What do those mean for people? What happened to the weekend trip to Barcelona and the return-flight to Munich for a meeting? Are we still going to Thailand for holidays in the winter? Have we gotten a new “travel culture” and how has that affected relations to space and time?
Past Events
FEBRUARY 5, 2019: Introduction to climate fiction writing
To kick-start your writing process, we bring you an evening with three renowned experts in the field; Wytske Versteeg (Author of the Boy & other titles), Dr Graeme Macdonald (Professor at University of Warwick) and Paul G Raven (post-doc at Lund University and fiction writer).
Where? Room 230, Eden, Department of Political Science, Lund University
When? 18-20, February 5th
Video? Take a look at the entire workshop online or to the left!
April 25, 2019: Ecosystem futures
During the second seminar on the way to our climate fiction competition ‘Anthropo-scenes’, we have the pleasure to present Paul Miller, who will talk about Ecosystem futures and how they might be visualised. This time, we will approach it as a dialogue – Paul Miller will briefly present his work on ecosystem modelling, then its questions time: What species of iconic birds might go extinct? How will the Swedish forests fare? What is an ecosystem phenomenon which few are looking at but is of vital importance? Maybe you have an idea for a story but need details (species, environments, characters etc.) to flesh it out? It’s a unique opportunity, don’t miss out and sign up for the seminar here.
Paul Miller is senior lecturer at the Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science at Lund University. Paul's research concerns ecosystem modelling and coupled climate modelling.
Where? Room 230, Eden, Department of Political Science, Lund University
When? 15-16.30, April 25th
Presentation? Take a look at the workshop presentation!
14 May, 2019: Technology futures
At this third seminar you will be brought into the world of future technologies. What are our chances of bringing about the negative emissions which are almost certainly required if we are to meet the 1,5-degree target? How will materials be produced in the future? Can we create anthropogenic carbon cycles? And are any of these technologies the solution to climate change mitigation? Professor Lars J Nilsson and post docs Alexandra Nikoleris and Fredric Bauer, all three from Environmental and Energy System Studies at Lund University will give you some ideas of what future technologies might bring. Sign up for the seminar here.
Where? Room 230, Eden, Department of Political Science, Lund University
When? 17.15-18.30, May 14th