Massound Hassani. Mine Kafon, 2011
This is Massoud Hassani's Eindhoven graduation project, Mine Kafon, a lightweight bamboo and plastic large dandelion puff that is blown by the wind over mined fields, detonating the mine and destroying itself in the process.
It is interesting, that the detonater was not conceived of as a large, mechanical force of technology that rolls over mines, survives them, and rolls on to the next land mine. Like children who mostly detonate land mines, this is a lightweight, expendable, one-time use detonator. Each unit contains a GPS that maps where it has been, showing areas that are safe.
It was tested by the Ministry of Defence of the Netherlands, and a second version is being developed that moves less randomly and is not so reliant on the wind. It is likely to be used to indicate a mined area, rather than clearing the area. Thus in the development process it becomes more controllable, probably heavier.
Hassani is from Kabul, smuggled out at 14, ending up in the Netherlands in 1998. On his website he talks about flying kites as a child and making other small things that caught the wind, the genesis of this project. The project has won a slew of awards so far, in its original bamboo form. The International Campaign to Ban Landmines is cautious: 'What the ICBL and our members, many of whom are humanitarian mine clearance organisations, are focused on is not the financial cost of clearing landmines but the humanitarian and socio-economic cost of not clearing them.' I'm not sure what that means.