De Pauw, (English: The Peacock) is the name of a newly built residential area in the village De Rijp which took its name from a historic wind-sawmill that once stood in the same area. This sawmill supplied wood to the village De Rijp when it still had an open connection to the North sea and was a thriving harbour. When the wetlands around De Rijp were turned into polders by building dikes around it and pumping out the water with water pump mills, the village lost its function as a sea harbour and out of necessity transitioned into a society of agriculture and horticulture. The work “de lucht lezen” was inspired by this transition and the fact that the fertile lands were won from the sea with water pump mills. Schlegel’s idea for the work came when she observed the Archimedes’ screw in action at a historic water pump mill. The name of the work “de lucht lezen”, or reading the sky, was borrowed from the answer of an experienced miller to the question what the most important skill for a good miller is; the ability to read the sky and thus make optimal use of the wind and prevent damage to the mill. The work references the historical use of windmills to reclaim the land from the sea, and the position of De Rijp as a former harbour with a sawmill. De lucht lezen evokes the most important quality of a traditional miller: the ability ‘to read the sky’, which attains new meanings in the context of climate change and rising sea levels – will De Rijp become a harbour once again?
de lucht lezen