An “empty place”? The transformation of the industrial landscape in contemporary Lithuania

• Authors: Aušra Teleišė
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

By focusing on the changes to the industrial landscape that can be identified visually and within the materiality of the built environment, this paper discusses the transformation of the industrial landscape and its meaning that has been produced by the human agency that has emerged in damaged industrial places after the restoration of Lithuania’s independence and post-Soviet deindustrialisation. It shows that there is a sense of emptiness related to the ruination and abandonment of the industrial landscape in people’s experiences and memories of Soviet industrial districts. However, it is evident that such emptiness is a transitional stage that creates the conditions for the emergence of new beginnings. The paper reveals that the industrial districts today are active places in which various individual economic activities and economic structures have emerged. The research is based on the two Lithuanian former Soviet industrial cities of Alytus and Marijampolė.

Keywords

EN

landscape; industrial place; visuality; post-Soviet deindustrialisation; Lithuania

Discipline

• ETHNOLOGY: ETHNOLOGY

• Publisher: Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Český lid: etnologický časopis (Český lid: Ethnological journal)
• Year: 2024
• Volume: 111
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 299-321
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Aušra Teleišė

• Český lid, redakce, Etnologický ústav AV ČR, v.v.i., Na Florenci 3, 110 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic