Travel Guides to Post-fossil futures

What would a visit to a post-fossil city, region, or country look like? Where would you stay, what would you do and where would you dine? In a series of projects, we have used the lens of the tourist guide to explore how a transformation would shape physical and cultural infrastructure in real and imagined places. Our first (ad)venture was the Rough Planet Guide to Notterdam, an exploration of how industrial centers would be re-shaped as the emission-heavy industry transitioned. Created within the REINVENT project, it was part research communication and part co-creative futures exploration.

Next, we deployed the travel guide concept in Skellefteå, to explore how this industrial city could develop as a new wave of industrial expansion occurs in light of the increasing demand for batteries. In Good Guide North, we explicitly aimed to provide a counter-narrative to the already existing expansionary and growth-centered imaginary of Skellefteå’s future. We asked how the city would feel and look like if no virgin land was developed and if resource efficiency and reuse became the norm. Similarly, we were keen to explore how a focus on culture and natur could run in parallel with industrial expansion, to avoid boom-bust dynamics and rekindle our connection to the more than human.

Finally, the ongoing project Zero Carbon Skåne is deploying the practices of creative participatory placemaking and will enroll citizens from locations around southern Sweden into a process of co-designing and narrating visions of life in a decarbonized sociotechnical regime. This will result in an ever-expanding online travel guide where inhabitants of Skåne can explore the future of their region.