flux

The Alba region of Romania, rich in gold, silver, and copper, is one of Europe’s oldest mining areas. In 1978, the village of Geamăna, located near the Roșia Poieni copper mine, was evacuated by government order. The valley was subsequently flooded to create a tailings pond for toxic mining waste, including cyanide and heavy metals. A vast contaminated lake now covers more than 130 hectares, submerging nearly the entire village—leaving visible only the church steeple and a few scattered houses. Although copper extraction ceased in 2000, the environmental consequences remain severe: water, soil, and food chains continue to be threatened by contamination.Geamăna’s toxic lake has been described as a “ticking ecological bomb”—a destructive force that exceeds human control and resists easy comprehension. This condition echoes the sentient and unfathomable ocean in Stanisław Lem’s novel Solaris, which confronts humanity with realities beyond its capacity to fully understand.The project approaches Geamăna’s lake as a hyperobject, drawing on the concept proposed by Timothy Morton to describe phenomena so vast—such as climate change or radioactive waste—that they defy total perception while profoundly shaping our world. Both Geamăna and the ocean in Solaris expose forces that restructure ecosystems and human existence alike, foregrounding the limits of human agency and comprehension.