Many suns, many futures: reimagining energy at Soleil·s

This article reviews Soleil·s, the central exhibition of the second Solar Biennale, held at MUDAC in Lausanne from 21 March to 21 September 2025. Through a selection of artworks, prototypes, projects, and references to pop culture, Soleil·s investigates solar energy not only as a technological resource but as a material for aesthetic and political imagination. While the show embraces a radically optimistic perspective on the transition to renewables, its rich display of data and didactic content occasionally outweighs the potential for aesthetic experience. The result is a curatorial tension, one that is increasingly familiar in contemporary art, between the desire to inform and the capacity to affect. However, by placing solar futures and “solar design” at the core of its inquiry, Soleil·s fosters crucial reflections on how art might participate in the reconfiguration of energy narratives and sensibilities in a time of planetary urgency.