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Paper short abstract

This paper examines the "afterlives" of industrial decay in Konin, Poland, where "Turquoise Lakes" – flooded open-pit mines – are rebranded as tourist spectacles. I argue that this narrative of anthropogenic reclamation offers a model of sensory aesthetics for the Anthropocene.

Paper long abstract

This paper investigates ruins as sites of both polarization and potential, examining how a post-mining region in central Poland – Konin – rebrands its industrial decay into a "post-natural" spectacle. Moving beyond the romanticized "man vs. nature" trope, I analyze the transformation of lignite mining scars into a unique tourism asset. Here, the central narrative is not one of mourning loss, but of deliberate, anthropogenic reclamation.

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and promotional analysis, I argue that the region’s "Turquoise Lakes"—flooded pit mines with a startling, chemically-induced hue—function as "entangled ruins" where past extraction and future recreation coexist. These sites are marketed not as pristine wilderness, but as spectacles of recovery. This narrative offers a compelling alternative for tourism in the Anthropocene, replacing the adversarial binary of "untouched nature" with a story of complex, manufactured co-creation.

The paper further explores the sensory aesthetics of this landscape. While the appeal is overwhelmingly visual—rooted in the sublime yet unsettling beauty of the turquoise water—it also encompasses a unique haptic and auditive experience of transition from heavy industry to leisure. By analyzing how this afterlife of decay is framed and commodified, I contribute to the panel’s discussion on how ruination reveals contested values. I suggest that the "Turquoise Gaze" represents a new mode of environmental care, where the material traces of fragmentation are not erased but integrated into a new, marketable aesthetic of endurance and repair.