The idea to create the Rediscovered project has emerged by coincidence during my analysis of the organisation of urban space in my hometown of Opole Lubelskie. Looking at the city development map, I have noticed that there are patches of land completely out of use. One of them turned out to be a place, only a few meters from my neighbourhood, the 17th century Jewish cemetery. In my memory, this area always acted as a playground to me – perfect spot for sledding in winter, in summer a hangouts place or a shorter way to the neighbouring district. It turned out that this area has not always looked like I remembered it and in the 20th and 21st centuries it kept strongly reshape itself. Before the 2nd World War it was an active Jewish cemetery, but during the German occupation it happened to be virtually annihilated – this act of devastation was performed by the townsfolk right after the war, robbing the graves and using the matzhevas to pave their streets. In the sixties it was decided to afforest the whole area and in this shape it can be experienced today. The complete exhumation has never been done, the time and town residents’ convenience have created new paths and completely destroyed intended purpose, shape and character of this place. The Rediscovered project is an attempt to discover this place once more, to bring the meaning of this area back, or even create a completely new one by means of photography. Photographs have been taken by a large format camera (4x5 inches). The exposure on the X-ray film has been made during various seasons, both day and night. The character of the used method made me to discover the process from scratch – exposure times varying from couple minutes up to 2 hours, times and forms of developing photographs, scanning method and finally the way of presentation. The choice of X-ray film is not without significance. It is a symbolic revelation of something that stays unseen, showing the true character of the place, which up to now, in a way, stayed hidden to me.
