Audio story brings Lund's climate change to life
In the fictional podcast series Easy to Do Right, we follow cultural journalist Johanna Rodner as she visits Lund's new city museum in 2060 and its major basic exhibition on climate work from 1992 to 2060. The series is inspired by CoAction Lund, where 25 actors are collaborating to accelerate the transition in mobility and energy. The aim is to raise thoughts about what the future might look like.
“It is important to stimulate people's imagination and make them think ahead,” says Johannes Stripple, political scientist at Lund University, who has worked for many years to develop methods that make it easier to understand the path to a fossil-free future — and how it can be experienced.
Imagine that the cobbles of Stortorget have been broken up and made room for both urban farms and a small football field. Outside Stadshallen there is a collection of hammocks and the former underground Västra Stadsbäcken has been developed and flows straight through the centre of Lund to the delight of both humans and animals. At the dairy, a wetland has been developed which has led to an increase in bird life, and at Drottensgatan, Lund's New City Museum is located in a former parking garage. The museum houses an exhibition on how the city made a climate transition between 1992 and 2060.
This is part of the picture of the future Lund that is painted in the vision that Umami Production developed together with the research network Climaginari at Lund University. Through three podcasts — Man in Time, Man in Motion and Man's Place — interviews, drama and sound environments are woven together into a speculative future depiction of how a city can fundamentally change. The vision for the future is created within the project CoAction Lund, where the focus is on creating a transition in mobility and energy.
- Since we are starting from 2060, we have started by drawing a picture of what a visionary Lund could look like where the planned changes are implemented and we can see what the consequences were, says Fredrik Pålsson at Umami Produktion.
Place for people and animals
To create the future picture, Fredrik Pålsson and Johannes Stripple at Lund University have conducted 25 interviews with participants in CoAction's working groups.
- Many of the partners in Coaction participate, says Johannes Stripple. From their responses we have drawn lines towards the future to try to see what the outcome might be. Then we have woven together a picture of it. I think those who have been there will recognize themselves in the fictional world we are telling about.
The planned city museum depicts the city's climate work in a way that it could have been done. In this vision, the city is counted as climate positive by 2045. The podcast also describes how the sound picture in the city changes so that, for example, the noise from cars disappears and instead gives way to the voices of people in cafes and bars and the sounds of nature: the murmuring, Västra Stadsbäcken, buzzing bees and cicadas, choking frogs and birds.
- One can imagine that the automotive community will be gone by 2060, says Fredrik Pålsson. Of course, there are still cars, but the very idea that the car is at the center is not there, and this has very big consequences.
Transport with small vehicles
The podcast describes how the differences between city and nature begin to dissolve over time, so that nature is part of the cityscape. There are also stories of protest movements, such as when some academics protest when the last of university parking spaces disappear and of a new transport system in which you send the big stuff in by tram while smaller vehicles handle transport directly to the shops. The program also reflects the first mobility hub, something that CoAction is working on. In the energy field, flexibility is the focus and energy community is the focus. This is exemplified by the fact that the museum has a room that is a replica of a room in a villa on Veberödsvägen in Dalby. Through this, one can follow how life changed in a residential area when an energy community where one produces and distributes energy was created.
Making the image of a future Lund through a fictional podcast is of course a conscious choice.
- Sound is effective to use because it creates an inner image in the listener, says Fredrik Pålsson. When you only hear sound, you have to create the image yourself with your imagination and this makes you become a co-creator of the image of the future.
The vision of the future can bring climate change to life.
- We describe an intended change in energy and transport systems, says Johannes Stripple. But infrastructure systems do not speak for themselves; we must bring it to life through the people who live in the systems. Officials and others are used to talking about changing systems but it doesn't grab the people that drama and staging can do. It is important to help people's imagination and make them feel what the future is.
The podcast will premiere on May 8 during Sustainability Week, and will be presented at a program point together with a progress report for the climate cooperation CoAction Lund. The podcast will be presented at 13.00.
It is possible to participate in the launch event digitally.
The podcast will also be available for download where podcasts usually exist.
Here's more info: Climate cooperation CoAction Lund & launch of future picture
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Pictured: Fredrik Pålsson at Umami Produktion and Johannes Stripple at Lund University in front of the Fargaren parking house, which in their vision of the future has become a city museum.