(Archive) A Visit to Emma

Welcome to Emma’s - 2070

​​There's no doubt that climate change will impact how we live, work, and eat. But what will that scenario look like?

In 50 years, sea levels will have raised approximately one extra metre. In some parts of the Netherlands, living in high rises, as Emma does, is the only way to keep afloat.

Research & speculations

According to author Amitav Ghosh, the climate crisis is not only a planetary crisis but also" a crisis of the imagination"¹. Figures about our future are scary or even devastating. Imagining living in a future where we've drastically had to adjust our living to a new reality is difficult, but isn't it necessary? "How do we move forward to a future we cannot imagine?"².

Our team researched climate issues and climate-related imaginaries. We then led a workshop on storytelling and individual relationships with climate future.
We concluded that people need concrete situations and relatable stories to imagine their future.

That is why we developed a climate fiction scenario in the form of an exhibition so that visitors can dive into a speculative climate future.


¹ 2016, Amitav Ghosh, The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable
² 2020, Isaijah Johnson, "Solarpunk" & the Pedagogical Value of Utopia

A new world

Walk in this apartment-shape exhibition between AR advertisements, news broadcasts, pollination kit, and discover who Emma is – what she eats, what technology she uses, and what she writes about.

She is the representation of anyone's possible future. Can you imagine yours?

We developed the artifacts by creating future narratives through exploring current research and possible futures found in climate fiction.
Artists such as Kim Stanley Robinson, Maja Lunde, and the Superflux studio inspired our work.