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The “Urban Sun” installation at the Solar Biennale, designed by Studio Roosegaarde. (Courtesy the Solar Biennale)
The “Urban Sun” installation at the Solar Biennale, designed by Studio Roosegaarde. (Courtesy the Solar Biennale)

An Energy Summit in the Netherlands Imagines a Solar-Powered Future

Jack Meyer

September 14, 2022
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As changes in weather patterns, economic realities, and public perception have triggered a wave of climate consciousness over the past few years, renewable energy sources have enjoyed a newfound level of attention, no longer relegated to the status of a far-off potentiality, but elevated, at least in the nebulous promises and sloganeering of powerful institutions, to that of an urgent necessity. Included in all of this is the long-sputtering industry of solar power. Factoids like how an hour and half worth of sunlight hitting the earth could provide the world’s total energy consumption in a year have been employed to tease out the industry’s transformative power for decades. Now, with technological advances making solar energy cheaper and more efficient than ever, it seems better poised than ever to take on a greater role in weaning humanity off of its fossil fuel and coal dependencies.

In the Dutch city of Rotterdam, an attempt to grasp onto this newfound momentum is set to take place with the first-ever Solar Biennale, a seven-week series of events spanning the months of September and October. The Biennale exists around the idea of reframing solar energy, focusing not on its often touted technical or economic aspects, but how it could fit within the framework of our everyday lives, and how it can complement the values we hold dear on an ecological as well as personal level.

The Biennale was conceived of by solar designers Marjan van Aubel and Pauline van Dongen, who will be bringing together all manner of creatives, professionals, and researchers through the program, beginning with a central exhibit at Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam and concluding with a solar pavilion on display at Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven.

The Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project in Nye County, Nevada, one of the projects that will be discussed at the Biennale. (Courtesy The Solar Biennale)
The Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project in Nye County, Nevada, one of the projects that will be discussed at the Biennale. (Courtesy The Solar Biennale)

The program itself consists of a range of seminars, exhibitions, installations, workshops, and labs from renowned solar designers across the globe. It will formally kick off on September 9 with The Solar Seminar, which will bring experts from multiple disciplines together to approach the topic of a solar future and attempt to formulate an idea of what a solar society could look like, and the concrete steps toward actualizing one. A centerpiece of the Biennale that will extend beyond its seven-week timeline is The Energy Show exhibition at Het Nieuwe Instituut, where, within the framework of a chronological history of the sun, visitors will get the chance to see experimental designs, solar-integrated architecture, and creative concepts from some of the foremost minds in the world of solar power.

Beyond this, a variety of other events are set to occur across Rotterdam and other cities across the country, including Amsterdam, before the Biennale reaches its conclusion during Dutch Design Week. While these attempts at getting people engaged take on myriad approaches, they all share the same aim of giving the public a chance to see the potential of solar with new, more imaginative, and more inspired eyes.

# Climate# The Future# Europe

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A New Zine Highlights the Poetry and Beauty of Food

Each of us has our own individual way of following the changing of the seasons, a private choreography in relationship to the calendar. For interior designer and prop stylist Olivia Sammons, the produce available from the farms, orchards, and markets near her family’s Hudson Valley home marks time for her, leading her forward through the year. “I spend so much time thinking about food,” she says. “What I’m going to eat, where I’m going to find it, which orchard has the best blueberries.” This focus led her to create the new zine Is My Favorite Flavor, which just launched its first issue, appropriately titled Summer! Is My Favorite Flavor, at the design-focused Head Hi bookshop and café in Brooklyn.

Photo: John C. Hawthorne. Courtesy Alex Tatarsky.

culture

Alex Tatarsky on Art as a Means to Live Out the Absurd

It’s late August, and I’m walking on Grand Street in Lower Manhattan. It’s one of those summer evenings that’s cooler than expected, a pleasant foreshadowing of fall. I’m on my way to discuss compost with the artist Alex Tatarsky, and as I head east from the subway, I pass through the dense, networked scents of the edge of Chinatown: the briny tang of fish markets, the sweet snatch of a fresh egg waffle from a rolled ice cream shop, the yeasty cloud that floats around the famous bialy shop. Approaching Abrons Art Center, where Tatarsky is doing pick-up rehearsals for an out-of-town run of their show Dirt Trip, this close-packed olfactory landscape opens up into something with more space: a faint vegetal whiff from a small vacant lot, the not unpleasant chemical tang from a passing truck, and beyond these, the smell of a certain rot rolling in from the East River.

Courtesy Blue Note Records

culture

An Album of Cover Songs Honors the Legacy of Leonard Cohen

Though nearly six years have gone by since Leonard Cohen’s passing, the long shadow cast by his legacy as one of the 20th century’s most esteemed and idiosyncratic singer-songwriters shows no signs of lifting from the public’s imagination anytime soon. From the enveloping warmth of “Suzanne,” to the high drama of “Hallelujah,” to the chilling minimalist and gospel juxtaposition of his swansong “You Want it Darker,” Cohen managed to constantly reinvent himself, leaving behind the rare achievement of a musical body of work whose most impressive moments exist across eras.