Den sista maskinen/ The last mill, 2021
The last mill/ Den sista maskinen, 2021.
"The northwest part of Southern Järva field, Stockholm, 12th of May 2016.
We noticed that the water level in the stream was unusually high, and still. After following the stream a couple of hundred meters further down east we discovered the reason for the altered biotope. A damming made by beavers where a number of trees from the brink had been felled to create a compound. The water levels on the west side of the dam was about to overflow the nearby meadows, but eastwards the creek was running on smoothly…
This scenario made us think of the Austrian forest caretaker and inventor Viktor Schauberger who elaborated with new biomimetic techniques in the early 20th century, based on the whirling movements of water in mountain rivers. Schauberger developed plans for a fully functional non-combustion motor, with implosion as its energy source. A motor that he perceived could save the natural world from the devastating effects of the rapidly expanding use of the explosion motor.
We could still hear the sound of the E18 highway from where we were standing. And although the stream was running through a ditch, our thoughts started to meander… From the time of Schaubergers experiments and onwards, the water running through Swedish landscapes has been cut into the ground, straightened and redirected. To lay bare productive lands for the harvesting of resources. Everywhere to be seen in woodlands and fields are systems of ditches and canals, which up until now has drained an amount of wetlands in the size of a quarter of Sweden.
In our minds we are now following a small woodland creek, leading into a concrete pipe that runs across an arable land, and in the end of the tunnel it lets us see a vision of the last machine. The last mill...
A man-made machine, but self-propelled when put into motion. Build to repair the nutrient runoff, drought damage and pollution made by the ditching and the culverting of water systems. A machine that continues to be active after hundreds of years, creating more and more wetlands and marshes..."
An installation made by Atelier for Implosive Design- Mats Adelman/ Ylva Westerlund. Exhibition view from Phantoms of the Commons at Tensta Konsthall, 2021.
Photo: Jean-Baptiste Beranger, Ylva Westerlund.
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