Mad Max
Bucket chain excavator “Mad Max” from 1962 on the Ferropolis site near Gräfenhainichen in Saxony-Anhalt. I took the photo in 1998, when the site was being transformed into an industrial museum as part of EXPO 2000 and the lignite landscape was slowly being flooded with water. At the time the photos were taken, the disused Golpa-Nord open-cast mine was still accessible with permission.
As part of EXPO 2000, Ferropolis was also intended to demonstrate solutions for the 21st century and the ensemble of large-scale open-cast mining equipment was to become a kind of 21st century Jurassic Park. The huge mining machines were seen as dinosaurs of the industrial age, which could tell future generations about a bygone era and the 150-year history of lignite mining.
Back then, I also photographed the special landscape and illuminated the machines in the evening and at night. The photograph of the excavator “Mad Max” is a favourite of mine. I took it between the two series British Abbeys and Ghost Towns of the American West.

























