Dustin Jacobus discusses his Solarpunk art with One Resilient Earth’s Laureline Simon, sharing how he envisions future societies to be not only more sustainable, but also more imaginative. Sharing reflections on his process of reimagining, he invites us to find meaning in even the smallest of innovations.
Laureline Simon: I am curious… what brought you to Solarpunk art?
Dustin Jacobus: In my early twenties, I developed a deeper awareness of what’s wrong in the world and felt a strong desire to address it professionally. With a background in industrial design engineering and a specialization in illustration, it felt natural to evolve through my artistic work.
At first, I focused on fairly commercial illustration projects, offering clients both artwork and print services. I made a conscious choice to use 100% recycled paper and vegetable-based inks. More than 15 years ago, this wasn’t revolutionary but was still uncommon, which helped set me apart. This marked the beginning of a gradual shift toward a more activist approach.
I then became involved in climate change movements and environmentalist groups, participating in various activist campaigns. Naturally, when people learned I was an illustrator, they began asking me to contribute visuals for campaigns and posters.
Over time, I noticed that much of the focus was on what’s going wrong, whether in agriculture, social systems, finance, or politics. While important, this made me want to shift toward more solution-driven projects and explore imagining what future solutions could look like. Gradually, I started visualizing positive alternatives.
Perhaps due to my technical background, I initially focused on technical illustrations connected to manual design, mainly open-source hardware, everyday tools like lawnmowers or bicycles. I was interested in making these tools open source, so instead of privatizing them, we could collaboratively develop a few strong designs and continually improve them. This seemed a better alternative to the flood of cheap, disposable products fueling a wasteful, consumer-driven society.
However, it didn’t take long before I moved beyond the purely technical and manual approach to take a broader perspective focused on futurism. I began portraying hopeful visions of the future, imagining what our society might become. Even if I couldn’t build or realize these ideas myself, I could still illustrate potential solutions. Many ideas might be imperfect or utopian, but by sharing them, I hoped to inspire discussion and reflection.
Because I was already engaged with this kind of thinking and art, I was naturally drawn to the Solarpunk movement. Although it had existed for some time, it was still quite underground. Around that time, I collaborated with science fiction writer Eric Hunting on a book, a technical piece about Solarpunk. His vision resonated deeply with me, and I realized that Solarpunk’s values aligned closely with my own. I wanted to explore, through my art, what a Solarpunk future could look like, and began labeling my work as Solarpunk. It felt right, and since then, I’ve connected with many other Solarpunk writers and artists who share these values.
Laureline: Can you tell me more about those values that resonated with you?
Dustin: When you look at the Solarpunk movement, a core shared value is its positive worldview. This optimism is crucial because climate anxiety and negativity can easily lead to despair. When people lose sight of solutions or a better future, it’s easy to feel hopeless. Solarpunk acknowledges that things aren’t perfect, but it challenges us to ask, “What can we do here and now, with the resources and situation we have, to build a better model?”
Secondly, Solarpunk embraces innovation in all forms, not just high tech, but also low tech and Indigenous knowledge. By learning from how our ancestors lived sustainably, we can find valuable lessons to address today’s challenges.
It all starts with imagining new possibilities.
Solarpunk is also a countercultural movement. It goes beyond designing sustainable products. It envisions a new societal model that is by the people, for the people. This includes alternative democratic systems, where workers have more agency and own their workshops, and farmers work in networks that provide food for local communities. These are the transformative changes Solarpunk advocates.
Perhaps most importantly, Solarpunk deeply reconnects us with nature. We shouldn’t focus solely on technology but remember that we are part of nature, a bond we’ve lost along the way. The Solarpunk vision reimagines how this connection can be restored in our daily lives. How can we make our cities greener and more water-rich? How can we revive the relationship we once had with the natural world? To me, this is at the heart of any sustainable future worth striving for.
Laureline: I’m curious about your approach to technology being not only high tech but also low tech, and building upon practices of Indigenous Peoples or other traditional technologies that give a large role to nature. How did you come across those different technologies? Was it something that you were always interested in?
Dustin: Well, when you’re part of Solarpunk networks and exchange ideas, you often find that many concepts people are passionate about originate from certain schools of thought, like the permaculture movement, low-tech approaches, and Indigenous practices. What initially drew me to Indigenous knowledge was my interest in how we might solve real-world problems.
For many of today’s complex issues, the go-to response is often a technological fix, especially when it’s new or innovative, which tends to get widely applauded. But there are problems with that approach. It often doesn’t address root causes, instead treating symptoms of deeper systemic issues. Another major concern, especially with high tech in our current system, is the gap in production, ownership, and accessibility. These technologies are often controlled by a few and out of reach for many.
We’re often told we live in a time of unprecedented freedom, but in many ways, we’ve lost certain kinds of freedom. Take, for example, life a hundred years ago: many people had greater control over the tools they used, the homes they built, and the agriculture they practiced. This sense of ownership, of having control over one’s immediate environment, offered a kind of practical freedom that has largely diminished.
Today, most of us lack the skills, knowledge, or means to build much of what we rely on, whether it’s food, a house, a car, a computer, or even simple everyday tools. Where production once happened in small workshops or was done by individuals themselves, it’s now concentrated in large industrial systems. That shift is an understandable part of technology’s evolution and pursuit of efficiency.
But when that shift is combined with an economic system that concentrates financial and productive assets in the hands of a few, it has made us increasingly dependent on those who control access to production, and to the knowledge behind it. Our reliance on these centralized systems is immense.
When we begin to notice things going wrong, it’s only logical to want change. But our available options often feel limited. In many cases, people can only appeal to politicians or corporations, hoping they’ll fix the very systems we depend on.
And here lies the friction: these institutions are deeply embedded in an economic model still driven by the logic of endless growth.
This is where Indigenous knowledge becomes deeply relevant. For thousands of years, many Indigenous communities lived in balance with their ecosystems. They understood that drastically altering their environment, like cutting too many trees or diverting water sources, would eventually lead to harmful consequences.
Like us, they required tools, housing, and essential services. But when problems arose, they often had more self-reliance and more control in responding to them. They weren’t dependent on distant, centralized systems. Their ways of living were deeply connected to the natural world, physically, culturally, and spiritually.
Indigenous knowledge is an incredibly rich source of inspiration, offering valuable lessons in resilience, stewardship, and long-term thinking. Of course, we’re not going to live exactly as our ancestors did. Nor should we. But we can learn from those principles and apply them with care and respect, without appropriating traditions or extracting them out of context.
Fortunately, we have other tools for moving toward a more resilient model. Take FabLabs, for example, local workshops where tools and machinery are shared and where you can use things like 3D printers or CNC cutting machines. This kind of setup challenges the current industrial model by empowering people to produce for themselves. The story changes, because people gain a measure of control over the means of production. That’s one of the main reasons I’ve always been drawn to open source, it gives you more agency over what you create.
We need to rethink how we build resilience by developing services and production models that reduce our dependence on highly centralized systems. Part of the solution lies in empowering people to understand how things are made and in sharing low tech knowledge about tools and technologies that are efficient, easy to use, and often inexpensive. These are approaches that don’t rely heavily on advanced or complex systems, but instead prioritize accessibility, sustainability, and ease of repair.
We can also support local businesses and shared workspaces where people can make, experiment, and innovate. The same idea applies to agriculture: people can learn how to grow their own food, and we can strengthen local farmers and food systems instead of relying on massive agro-industrial corporations.
Encouraging people to reconnect with their immediate environment, understanding the waters that flow through their villages, the local ecosystems, and seasonal cycles, fosters a deeper sense of awareness and care. All of this gives people more control, strengthens community ties, and builds the kind of resilience we’ll need in the uncertain times ahead.
Laureline: I’m also curious about what kind of impact you expect your artworks will have. Are there different scenarios you have in mind in terms of changing mindsets? Maybe having people start working on some of the designs that you’re inventing through your drawings, or imagining that some of the cities that you’ve envisioned come to life?
Dustin: I try not to set grand expectations. Honestly, I’m happy just to share my art and if people find it visually engaging or feel inspired by it, that’s already meaningful to me. Sometimes I get feedback like, “I love the clarity of your images and the colors,” and that’s perfectly fine too.
That said, as both an artist and designer, I really appreciate when viewers engage more deeply with the ideas behind the work. I often explore topics outside my direct expertise, drawing inspiration from books, lectures, or documentaries, and then try to translate those concepts visually. I ask myself questions like: What if this idea were scaled up? How would it function in an urban rather than rural context? What happens when these ideas intersect?
I’m aware that some of my interpretations might seem idealistic or oversimplified to specialists, and I’m okay with that. My main goal is to spark curiosity and open up new ways of thinking.
It’s especially rewarding when experts like biologists, architects, engineers find something useful in the work or say they learned something new. Even constructive criticism is valuable; I believe that presenting ideas in an accessible, sometimes even simplified form can lead to unexpected insights, both for specialists and general audiences.
Recently, I’ve had the chance to collaborate with people who are actively implementing Solarpunk principles in real-world projects. One group, for example, is applying for grants in Europe and Africa to establish microclimate farms. Their agricultural approach blends high-tech elements like solar panels, sensors, and digital systems with low-tech regenerative farming and soil restoration methods. What’s inspiring is their effort to work with the ecosystem, not against it. If wild boars live on the land, they find ways to integrate them into the farm’s ecology, understanding that the land isn’t only for human use but part of a broader habitat.
My role in these kinds of projects is often to help visualize and clarify complex ideas through illustration. In some cases, they’ve even drawn inspiration from my work, creating a kind of feedback loop: I learn from their real-world experiments, and they use my artwork to imagine possibilities. That exchange between art and action is incredibly energizing.
Laureline: Wow, that’s fascinating to imagine those loops of mutual inspiration and possibilities to grow together by both experimenting and envisioning. I also very much see the value of the wilder imaginations or the representations that may not be easy to implement right away. I’m thinking of your Universitas series particularly, which I find extremely inspiring and beautiful but which may be seen as, “Okay, this is actually very far off.”
I am wondering what the inspiration was behind it, or what this work enabled you to explore? It also resonates a lot with our focus at One Resilient Earth on uncensored or unbridled imagination, and the importance of cultivating that even when we have a very solution-oriented mind.
Dustin: Universitas differs from my recent Solarpunk artwork in that it is more speculative, a vision of a distant future shaped by major societal collapse and rebuilding. While Solarpunk often explores feasible, near-term solutions, Universitas imagines how humanity might evolve after a total breakdown, how new societies could form on a planet much changed and more hostile than ours.
In this imagined future, I created eight distinct societies, each with unique social structures and survival strategies. For example, one is an agricultural, community-governed world focused on food production, while another is a technocratic, science-driven society centered on robotics and green technology. There is a nomadic, sea-based trading community that values freedom, a military society controlling air and space, a spiritual community in the Himalayas, among others.
Though shaped by past disasters, these societies maintain a fragile balance of cooperation and conflict, navigating different values and worldviews. Through this project, I explored themes of resilience, diversity, and the possibility of rebuilding.
Laureline: You mentioned in the beginning how we live in a world where we hear so much about crises that it may be difficult for us to even envision that there could be some positive future, or some really different futures, sometimes the view is just blocked.
I experienced it myself five years ago after having worked for over twelve years on climate change and reading reports every day that were essentially focused on different scenarios and impacts of climate change. I had to run a workshop about imagining desirable futures, but there was nothing desirable coming up in my mind. Something was blocking inside of me. I couldn’t go there either because I thought it was just not possible, or it didn’t make sense. So there was a rational part of me saying, “what’s the point?”
I’m wondering if you experienced something like that in the beginning, if it was difficult for you to envision those more positive futures, or if you have any tips or ideas or recommendations for people who might feel this kind of block.
Dustin: I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a creative block like you describe. For me, it’s more like a channeling of the sadness I sometimes feel when I look at the world around me. I retreat to my drawing table, dive into my head, and imagine how things could look different. It acts as an escape route. Sharing my work and connecting with others helps me.
But I do experience sadness and hopelessness, and it definitely discourages me. For example, where I live in the countryside, behind my garden there used to be plenty of trees and shrubs, but then my neighbor decided to cut them all down. That really depressed me. Later, when I walked down the street and saw so many other cleared gardens with just lawns, I felt completely helpless. And then, when I heard on the radio once again about the number of trees lost in the Amazon Rainforest, I reached a point where I couldn’t help but ask myself, “What am I doing?” My hope just fades away.
But then, luckily, it helps me to reimagine how things could look, how I would love them to look, and that gives me back positive energy. I go to my table, take a blank sheet of paper, and, thinking about the clear-cut trees and the many lawns on my street, I imagine an ownership model where 10% of these gardens are managed collectively and fruit trees are planted. Maybe that’s a model people could get behind. Everyone would have a view of trees, with birds and other wildlife, and the trees would provide food. Then I make a drawing of it and say, let’s share this idea.
That’s usually how it goes when I feel down, it’s my way of turning sadness into something hopeful.
After all, I think it’s largely a cultural thing. My neighbor grew up in a world where forests and rivers had lost their meaning, a world where people no longer felt connected to them. But that can change, and I believe art has the power to shift something.
A single image can open a door. That thought is what keeps me going.
Each time something disheartens me, I return home and draw the world as I believe it could be. I use my pencil to dream aloud, but others might find their voice in words, even in quiet conversations with friends or family, or by shaping something with their hands. It all begins with the simple act of imagining a different way.
Laureline: Listening to you, it seems that the block builds up when you accept the situation somehow. But if you actually do something about it, whatever it is, either it’s a drawing or talking about it, or even crying, I can imagine that the flow continues, and the block cannot take hold. I think at some point in the past, I had accepted that this was it. There was a part of me that thought it’s just going to be about managing collapse from now on and then it was very difficult to come out of it, because there is also a form of comfort in that very clear position.
Dustin: Another thing I like to point out is that sometimes people see solutions as too big, and that can feel overwhelming, even paralyzing. I like to walk through cities and simply observe what’s around me. What’s really happening in a city? What are people actually doing? For example, you might come across a repurposed barrel with a big tree growing out of it, someone clearly planted that. In any city, you can find small, forgotten things like this. These little moments inspire me, because even though they look small, they’re not. That one plant might already be home to caterpillars, butterflies, or other tiny creatures. To us, it might seem insignificant, but from another perspective, it isn’t.
Small actions do matter.
I pay attention to the creativity of people, especially in urban environments, how they alter their surroundings in small but meaningful ways. Take the man with the repurposed barrel and the tree in it. He probably planted it just for his own home, perhaps to improve his immediate surroundings, but it ends up changing the whole neighborhood. For instance, a tree provides shade—something much needed in urban heat islands. It also transforms the view of the street: instead of a dull gray wall, you suddenly see something living and beautiful. Soon, a bird flies in and lands on the tree, maybe even builds a nest there. If the tree weren’t there, the bird, and many other species, wouldn’t be either. That one small act reshapes the space for everyone in many ways, even if it began as something personal.
What I’m really saying is that we don’t always need to look at things on such a big scale. Of course, you can’t just fly to Brazil to stop the clear-cutting of the Amazon Rainforest, but that doesn’t mean you’re powerless. Small actions do matter. These are the things you do have control over. Tiny efforts, even if they seem insignificant, often matter much more than people realize.
Laureline: I fully agree. Thank you so much.
Dustin Jacobus is an illustrator and industrial design engineer whose work explores how nature and the built environment can grow together. Deeply inspired by natural systems, his art is rooted in biomimicry, sustainable design, and the solarpunk movement. He envisions a world where we coexist in harmony with all life forms, creating sustainable, water-rich, and green environments, both urban and beyond and expresses these ideas through his art. His vision has been shared in exhibitions, talks, workshops, and a wide range of publications across books, magazines, and other media.