Paper short abstract:

The proposed paper will explore the re-imagination of the future by discussing a co-creative filmmaking project addressing the emergence of solastalgia in relation to overtourism across strategic sites in the UK and in the EU.

Paper long abstract:

The proposed paper will explore the re-imagination of the future by discussing a co-creative filmmaking project addressing the emergence of solastalgia in relation to overtourism across strategic sites in the UK and in the EU. Solastalgia is the mental health distress produced by environmental change and affecting people while they are still living within their home environment. The paper and the project it is based on will explore under-researched aspects of solastalgia with local communities experiencing a rapid increase in tourism polluting the physical environment, evicting local inhabitants from their homes, pricing them out of their neighbourhoods and villages, and erasing their culture, language, heritage and ways of life.

The paper and the project it draws on combine collaborative filmmaking and citizen science approaches in the fields of green criminology, biology and psychology to create interdisciplinary communities of academic and community-based researchers identifying, analysing and representing environmental problems and future solutions in their own terms. Co-creative filmmaking will act as a strategic catalyst for the creation of new communities of academic and citizen researchers across existing disciplines and social divisions. Most importantly, it will allow local communities re-imagine their future lives by owning the terms of the representation of the environmental issues they face and of the solutions through which they would like to the situation in the future.