Future Machine travelled to Cumbria in September, to the Lakes School on the shores of Lake Windermere to meet by the water, with a class of students from the school .
First, a session took place where the students learnt about climate change, data and narratives of the future. Creating their own felt data maps – a combination of craft, stories and scientific data that represents the past, present and future of the Windermere-Leven watershed and it’s surrounds.
Sadly the route to the shore of Lake Windermere was no longer accessible for the planned visit to the lake itself. Finally on a warm early November day (a Covid outbreak and a wait to see if we could get to the Lake meant it was fully Autumn and no longer the end of Summer), the students met Future Machine in the playground outside their classroom and then helped pull Future Machine to the low dry stone wall at the edge of the playground that hides a small stream, flowing through the woodland and fields to the lake below. Here we witnessed the moment, took photos and recorded sounds, wrote our observations and acted as human sensors.
The students spoke their messages to the future, that they had prepared earlier, adding their voices, hopes, fears and dreams to the vision of the future held by the Future Machine. A reminder that adults may talk about leaving a better world for the next generation but without listening to them we will never remember what this means.
They listened to the sounds of the unexpectedly warm, windy autumn weather with a sprinkling of rain, and the messages left by other people, at other times in the other places where Future Machine has visited.