FOSSIBILITIES
FOSSIL – a trace of life | POSSIBILITY – a future scenario

An interdisciplinary project that merges design, art, and science, representing approaches from design fiction, speculative design, eco-critical storytelling, and future narratives.

FOSSIBILITIES creates speculative scenarios based on local myths and scientific discoveries, presenting futuristic fossils of hypothetical future organisms. The project encourages reflection on evolution and the human impact on the planet, addressing climate change and sustainability.

It invites us to imagine the future as an archive of our present actions—material traces that may one day be read as the fossils of the Anthropocene.

FOSSIBILITIES actively engages audiences, stimulates critical thinking and emotional responsibility. It was awarded the Silver Prize in the Universal Design category of the prestigious Design Educates Awards organized by the Laka Foundation. This award recognizes projects with strong educational value that influence perception and behavior, selected by an international jury of leading architects, designers, and innovators.

What if—like the dinosaurs—we disappear from the Earth, leaving only traces behind?

Fossibilities is a story about what might remain of us—and what may one day be discovered by a visitor in search of life on the blue planet.
This timeline begins in the distant future, after humanity is gone.

It starts with echoes of civilization: plastic bottles, cans, waste. From them emerge mutated forms—partially familiar, yet increasingly alien.
Over time, these organisms become more fantastical, resembling aquatic creatures from an imagined bestiary of the future. Eventually, only the simplest forms of life remain—similar to trilobites.

In this way, the story comes full circle: from humans to primordial organisms.

Project realized thanks to the Culture Moves Europe scholarship funded by the Goethe Institute

Project carried out at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Universitat Politècnica de València and Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche

*This has the financial assistance of the European Union. The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Union.

Fossibilities explores human creativity through speculative archaeology, showing how fear and deeply rooted emotions can inspire innovation. The project invites the public to participate in shaping the narrative—transforming anxiety into dialogue on climate change, sustainability, and ecological responsibility.

As a platform for discussion between science and mythology, history and the future, Fossibilities combines design, environmental studies, and speculative fiction. Drawing on local legends and the biodiversity of the Valencian Gulf, it builds a dystopian bestiary of a possible post-anthropogenic world, addressing themes like eutrophication, mutation, pollution, and global warming.

Origins of the project:

Concept presentation and discussed at the Universitat Politècnica de València, March 2023

Published in ANIAV 2024 under the theme Myth and Reality

1. Collective Memory – What do we remember and why?

Collective memory shapes cultural identity, forming the foundations of shared values, rituals, and beliefs. Myths and legends are not just stories from the past—they are living mechanisms of culture that help us understand the world, warn us, and bind communities together.

In Fossibilities, dedicated to the Valencian Gulf, I drew on local myths and symbols that have shaped the cultural landscape of the region for generations. One such story is that of La Cuca Fera—a mythical creature resembling a turtle with the jaws of a dragon, said to eat cats and children. Once a symbol of heresy in Corpus Christi processions, it has evolved into a friendly figure in children’s festivals—showing how myths change with culture.

Is it a coincidence that in this very region, in 2015, the remains of the largest known marine turtle—Leviathanochelys aenigmatica—were discovered? This collision of myth and paleontological fact is the starting point for the project’s speculative narrative. Myths, like that of La Cuca Fera, often intuitively anticipate what science later confirms—opening space to reflect on what we remember and how those stories shape our worldview.

2. Fear as a Tool for Creativity

Fear is a primal emotion essential to survival. In the face of danger, the brain heightens perception and fills in the blanks with imagined threats—often exaggerating what is unknown. The saying “fear makes things appear bigger” perfectly captures this psychological bias.

While unsettling, fear can also inspire. In speculative design, it acts as a lens—focusing collective anxieties and transforming them into imagined futures. Creativity becomes a means to process the unknown, turning emotions into metaphors, warnings, and critical visions.

4. What if we’re already creating today’s monsters and future legends?

Human activity is drastically disrupting ecosystems. Pollution—especially plastic—remains in the environment for centuries, causing deformities, mutations, and accelerated evolutionary shifts. Fossibilities asks: Are we already creating the monsters of the Anthropocene?

Cases like deformed turtles trapped in waste or invasive species in the Mediterranean show how we are shaping new, dangerous forms of life—biological “monsters” of our time.

These processes inspired the creation of speculative objects—future fossils—that materialize the consequences of our actions in the form of a dystopian bestiary. Through aesthetic, narrative, and material strategies, the project transforms complex phenomena—civilization diseases, pollution, ecological collapse—into stories that can be experienced and touched.

The Creative Process

Fossibilities – A Material Storytelling Experience

The fossil motif evokes memory—what once was, yet can no longer be reclaimed. Fossibilities uses this symbol to craft speculative narratives, combining myth, science, and reflection on the Anthropocene. Instead of digital renderings, the project creates tangible objects—“futuro-fossils”—that act as physical stories embedded in matter.

Their aesthetics, based on conservation techniques and an earthy color palette, reinforce realism. Metal and plastic traces suggest humanity’s imprint—creating future geological layers filled with trash, mutations, and hybrid life forms.

Fossibilities is speculative archaeology of the future: a visual and material storytelling project that not only warns, but opens dialogue between past, present, and imagined worlds. It asks:
Do we need to wait for a dystopian end to the Anthropocene, or are we already shaping the beasts of our era?

Production and creative Process – work in progress

1a. Searching for and researching nature materials

CANTERA DE SALEM – GRUPO CALETA Rafol De Salem provincia de Valencia
The lands where Rafol de Salem is located have been inhabited since prehistoric times, as evidenced by various ceramic remains found in the serreta (mountain range) of Rafol. But as a village it has its origins in the period of Muslim domination, due to the type of land found there: clay. The place was called the clay workshop, which in Arabic was known as Raf-al-giz and the Christians as Rafalgeps.

1b. Searching for and researching local nature materials
Pobla del Duc – snails shells

2. Learning about and discovering local culture

3a. Sea inspirations from local market

-Mercado Central, ValenciaMercado Central or Mercat Central (English: Central Market) is a public market located across from the Llotja de la Seda and the church of the Juanes in central Valencia, Spain. It is one of the main works of the Valencian Art Nouveau.

-Mercado de Ruzafa

(en valenciano: Mercat de Russafa) is located in the Plaza Barón de Cortes de Pallás in the city of Valencia (Spain). The building was designed and built by the architect Júlio Bellot Senet in 1957.

4. Development of first projects

5. the modelling phase of your own monsters, mostrum

INSPIRATIONS
– civilisation diseases
– impact of pollution
– hybrids
– bestiary
– sea fauna and flora

6. Project implementation and development

Exhibition: POSTANTHROPOCENE

ESPAI VITRINA, Faculty of Fine Arts, Universitat Politècnica de València
From July 17 to September 15, 2023
EXHIBICIÓN EN ESPAI [VITRINA] – July 17 to July 28, Hall of BBAA

The conceptual perspective of going beyond the category of the “human” emerged in academia during the last three decades of the 20th century, in response to growing concern over environmental and ecological crises and their socio-economic consequences.

This shift calls not only for the ecologization of knowledge and research perspectives in the humanities but also presents a challenge for contemporary art—prompting a rethinking of how we create, represent, and narrate life in the context of the post-anthropocene.

A dystopian scenario serves here as a starting point for merging science and imagination in the creation of a potential post-anthropogenic bestiary—featuring organisms that could exist after our era. Through a series of sculptural objects, we are transported into a future as distant as the age of dinosaurs, but on a reversed timeline.

Each presented “fossil” invites reflection, telling a unique story that touches upon pressing issues such as eutrophication, mutation, pollution, and global warming. To illustrate the escalation of today’s environmental problems, a unique collection of futuristic fossils was created and exhibited at ESPAI VITRINA, Faculty of Fine Arts, Universitat Politècnica de València, from July 17 to September 15, 2023.

Photography: Marta A. Flisykowska
Stone material sourced from: CANTERA DE SALEM Quarry – CALETA Group, Rafol De Salem, Province of Valencia