GREENLIGHT

Greenlight is a research-led speculative project that investigates how future environmental policies might reshape global mobility, personal autonomy, and spatial governance. Rooted in current discourses on climate adaptation, border security, and airport expansion, the project constructs a near-future scenario (2040) in which Heathrow Airport operates under a fully enforced Eco-Security Policy.

This policy expands sustainability compliance from airlines to individual passengers, introducing a layered system of environmental scoring, digital surveillance, and material regulation. The research investigates existing biosecurity protocols, environmental scoring systems, and the rise of automated decision-making in public infrastructure. Drawing from these real-world references, the project constructs a future scenario where passengers must comply with strict sustainability measures, including regulated luggage contents, standardised boarding clothing, and behavioural monitoring. And the Holding Room, a transitional space for non-compliant passengers, serves as a central site of narrative and spatial investigation.

Through world-building, including physical model-making, AI-based visual experimentation, and cinematic storytelling, the project explores how control is exercised not through overt force but through waiting, aesthetic neutrality, and internalised compliance. The narrative of the film follows Sofia Liang, an artist detained for material non-compliance, and draws parallels between sustainability governance and bureaucratic absorption.

Rather than offering a solution, Greenlight presents a possible future and uses world-building as a critical method to examine the social implications of sustainability enforcement, inviting reflection on how future infrastructures may shape ethical, emotional, and spatial experiences of air travel.