Imaginative Realism: Cli-Fi, the Sublime, and the Public Imaginary

This studio examines if and how the historical notion of the sublime might provide a lens through which to view our current crisis, examining the ways climate change is imagined, envisioned, and represented in order to understand how alternate narratives might be formulated and advanced. The studio constructs scenarios predicated not on nature as an “other” to be feared or exploited but rather on the reciprocity between the human-made and the natural. These speculations recognize and catalyze the interdependency between biological, climatological, infrastructural, social, and economic systems, challenging the categorical divisions that have engendered the grounding conditions of our current predicament. The studio asks: can a new architectural, urban, and landscape imaginary can foster action, navigating between the anxieties of the present moment and the projection of a fragile but still possible future?

This course is part of the Public Works for a Green New Deal curricular initiative sponsored by the Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture as a part of their project Power: Infrastructure in America.