During the 60’s, it was near impossible for independent farmers in Poland to get their hands on a tractor because the socialist government allocated most of the agricultural machinery produced to state-owned businesses.
Out of necessity, and to spit in the governments face, so to speak, farmers got imaginative and made their own machines using engine parts and scrap metals from old army vehicles and pre-WW1 German machines.
Since 2005, photographer Łukasz Skąpski has been traveling throughout Poland documenting this interesting and impressive DIY culture. Photographs from the series are currently being exhibited at Żak Gallery in Berlin. These machines are literally works of art!
Via: WMMNA
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DIY culture has lots of possible manifestations. I really dig what it is all about and can see it becoming more and more important into the future. In this case the farmers you mention are simply amazing! Rather than being forced to pay lots of money for a tractor they couldn’t afford they just did it themselves and gave a middle finger to the man. It kinda reminds me of communal living. Like all these corporations that exist, if people started doing their own shit more…they would totally suffer in their business models.