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Agartha.One · Jun 9, 2026

T Shirt as a Medium: Telling the Solarpunk Story

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Nico Shi · Agartha.One

For the last two months, I’ve been traveling from Portugal → London → Shanghai → SF. And I collected a range of interesting music along the way. Please enjoy this mix:

Same tracks but on Spotify here

We’ve landed at Edge Esmeralda!~ It’s so great to be back here, see familiar faces, meet new people… It’s also been an INTENSE time, so much influx of conversations, ideas, people… My nervous system is definitely jazzed, but I’m loving it.

Opening Ceremony (with 1/3 of our residents) at Serj’s backyard

To honor the spirit of a relentless builder village, we have launched our merch shop at the Week1 demo day! Find it at merch.agartha.one

Art can soften hearts, and softened hearts can change the world.

How can we use great designs, cultural zeitgeist, high fashion, and iconic styles, to tell the story of Solarpunk?

Media theorist Marshall McLuhan coined the term in 1964:

The medium is the message

It means that the form of communication itself - not the content it carries - shapes how we perceive the world, altering our habits, thoughts, and society.

The information we receive on a day to day basis alters our subconscious. It enters our dreams, makes us desire that order of fries or pizza, pulls us to purchase the thing we don’t really need. It’s an open secrete that advertisement functions as a subversive form of propaganda.

In the film They Live by John Carpenter, all the billboards in a city actually have very simple messages, that only people with special glasses can see.

Must we remove ourselves from society, turn off screens, go offline, to properly ‘detox’?

OR

Can we use the same medium to evoke conversation around something healthy or meaningful? If advertising is a tool, what if we use it to make people feel better, healthier, happier? What if we treat the receivers of our message more like humans, rather than consumers?

Imagine the next time you drive on a highway and all you see are billboards about planting trees, taking a deep breath, and sharing some love?

Thank you nanobanana for making this image possible! Please excuse AI glitches :P

This already exists at some levels. There are products and companies with integrity that deeply care about humankind’s general wellbeing, while staying profitable.

The story of the Parks Project has inspired me for years:

In 2014, two friends started selling T-shirts out of a trunk in Los Angeles to raise money for their favorite hiking trails. No venture capital, no grand strategy — just a screen printer and a genuine love for public land. That company is now Parks Project, a nonprofit that has partnered with over 100 national parks and donated millions of dollars to conservation across the United States. They've funded trail restorations, wildlife habitats, and park ranger programs — all through merch. A T-shirt. That's where it started.

Personally, I am just obsessed with street style designs, skate punk culture, and graphic Ts. To say what I want to say for Agartha on a T-shirt just feels like second nature.

Each artwork is designed with a special message and intention behind it, here they are!

This design was made to express this feeling of Unity — that so-called strangers are actually family. The world is not only a collection of places you pass through, but the one home you share with everyone.

Travel long enough and you start to notice: we aren’t that different. Strangers offer directions, share food, find someone who speaks enough of your language to make it work.

Thich Nhat Hanh wrote that we are here to awaken to the illusion of our separation.

This piece is for the nomads, the third-culture kids, the alien immigrants, the exiles, the people with three answers to “where are you from”, the curious explorer who want to spread unconditional love and responsibility anywhere they go.

The world is our home. Let’s take care of it.

Our friend, past Agartha resident, a Solarpunk commune hopping land ownership ambassador Chris Morello has been relentlessly advocating communal ownership of land — ‘Get some friends, buy some land!’ has become his motto.

I’m very aligned with his ethos. And I do think that buying land is one of the most radical things you can do with money.

It is the foundation to secure food, water and energy production, a place to step outside the default’s permission.

Land security allows families to build for the future generations, grow permanent gardens that feed people, create sanctuaries that protects personal freedom when the states fail to do so.

Aliens can claim a new level of sovereignty by owning land

Land ownership is also a form of stewardship. Some wealthy conservationists are steps ahead — buying forests to protect them from extractive farming.

The shirt invites you to pass on this message, and inspire action.

Buy Land comes in green on black and red on white.

Get the 'Buy Land' shirt

The EXIT society team thinks the world is too far gone and builds bunkers.

The DEFAULT society dwellers thinks everything is fine, actually.

The Rationalists won’t investigate anything that can’t be peer-reviewed.

The Mystics believes that celestial beings explains everything.

The Middle Path is a mental model — a 2x2 matrix mapping the full spectrum from Exit to Default, Rational to Mystic.

This design is to help locate where you are among the middle path, and encourage choosing different perspectives.

Wear it. Hang it up. Point at it. Think about where you belong on this chart? Use this as your tool to start a conversation!

The Middle Path currently comes in black (I think a poster would be cool too?)

Get 'The Middle Path'

Henri Matisse painted The Dance in 1910, pulled from ancient Greek chorus dances and Dionysian rites — pre-Christian, pre-rational. The figures aren't celebrating anything specific. They're celebrating the art of being alive.

In Howl's Moving Castle, when Howl gives away his heart to a falling star, luminous spirits circle the moment by dancing, not mourning, but celebrating. The dance circle celebrates meaning, dedication, and love. It was a beautiful poetic witness and honor of a sacred moment.

Throughout history at all corners of earth, we share the same intuition to gather, celebrate, dance, and make meaning. Before geological borders, nation wars, and arguments about whose god is older, life was different.

Let’s not forget that we also share the same planet.

Earth Dance brings the feeling of celebration, community, love and joy around earth, to visually inspire a more joyful, ancient way to celebrate our beautiful home.

Earth Dance comes in beige, blue, and pink.

Get 'Earth Dance'

We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology.

That gap — between what we can build and who we are — is the defining crisis of our time.

But here’s the thing we keep forgetting:

The ancients weren’t primitive.

They were paying attention to different things. Fritjof Capra spent a decade mapping the parallels between quantum physics and Eastern mysticism in ‘The Tao of Physics’ and found they were describing the same reality — one through measurement, one through practice.

We’ve been so busy building forward, peeling off the mask of our reality, the same reality our ancestors came to see by observing the stars, feeling the seasons, and sitting around a fire.

Imagine an ancient future: barefoot on soil, fire circles, drumming and chanting, birds, bees, and trees… with brain-computer interfaces, automated robot farms, 3D printed homes, space travels, and intelligent systems managing resources we survive on.

Community and technology, the heart and the science, fitting into the same vibrant picture.

That’s what this piece is about, it’s an ASCII art about a Solarpunk community, with domes, trees, and turbines. A reminder of where we could be going.

This piece comes in black, white, dark green, and apricot.

Get 'The Future'

By buying a T-shirt, you are directly supporting Agartha and our mission to build a Solarpunk cultural movement.

We hope our designs bring you a sense of meaning, reflecting the values you hold dear. We hope it connects you with others who are walking a similar path. We hope you rock it in style!

Find it at merch.agartha.one

  • June 2026 — We’re running our 4th residency Touch Grass at Edge Esmeralda 🌊 — come find us, come wear the shirt, come say hi.

  • More pieces dropping as the summer goes, stay tuned!

If any of this resonated — share it with someone who’d get it!

Sending you love… 💕

P.S. We hosted a very ‘Touch Grassy’ house party last weekend at the Chalk Hill Residency, it was a blast!

✨ Thanks for reading! Agartha is a creative studio on a mission to create a Solarpunk cultural movement. 💕 Join us as we chronicle our journey exploring Solarpunk lifestyles around ethical technology, planetary regeneration, loving community, and spiritual growth. ☀️

If this work feels meaningful for you, please become our paid patron to support our efforts! We really appreciate it :)

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