For my final project in Innovation class at Parsons School of Design, I created a design fiction — a speculative design practice that uses imagined future worlds to explore societal, environmental, and cultural issues.

My project, Le Grand Cirque des Mondes Disparus ("The Grand Circus of Lost Worlds"), is set in 2086, in a world ravaged by ecological collapse, economic instability, and mass migration. Fires, floods, and crumbling cities have become the backdrop of daily life, and the natural biomes that once defined the planet exist only in paper and memory. Into this broken world arrives a mysterious traveling circus — part spectacle, part escape — that resurrects those lost ecosystems through two hours of immersive theatrical performance. Accessible only to the wealthy and politically connected, the circus doubles as a social commentary on elitism and privilege in times of crisis.

To build out the world, I created two primary artifacts: a large-scale promotional poster and a fully designed printed circus program. For presentation day, I produced glossy physical copies of the program so that audience members could flip through and tangibly inhabit the fictional world. I presented the project at the Parsons Innovation Science Fair through theatrical storytelling, live performance, and an immersive pop-up — dressed, naturally, as a French circus ringmaster.

The Story:

The narrative follows three travelers — Lucien the Luminous, Marie the Magnificent, and Jacque the Journeyer — on a journey toward a northern sanctuary known as Ground Zero. Along the way, they pass through six vanished biomes, each ruled by a symbolic Queen representing a lost ecosystem: the Coral Seas, Peat Forests, Dunes, Mediterranean Islands, Kelp Forests, and the Himalayas. Each Queen presents the travelers with a trial rooted in themes of survival, memory, and environmental loss.

When they finally reach Ground Zero, they find not a paradise but an underground concrete bunker — empty, lifeless, devoid of hope. The destination holds nothing. The realization lands quietly but powerfully: everything they had longed for — the joy, vibrancy, and chance at a new life — existed only in the journey itself; in the biomes and trials with the creatures and Queens.

As the circus closes, the audience understands the gap between themselves and the characters on stage. Lucien, Marie, and Jacque got to feel it — the aliveness of coral seas, peat forests, mountain air. The audience only got to watch. In their world, those biomes are already gone, and so is any chance of knowing what that joy actually feels like. The performance was the closest they will ever get.