The volume spectrum is an analogue of the Laplace spectrum, defined through the area functional together with homological or cohomological relations in the space of hypercycles. In this talk, I will introduce several versions of the volume spectrum and highlight its applications in geometric variational theory. Specifically, I will discuss how the spectrum can be used to address existence problems for minimal surfaces and constant mean curvature surfaces. Finally, I will present recent progress on extending these ideas to a higher codimensional problem.