News

What role do photography and film play in contemporary archaeological research? Answers to the question was being sought by the participants of a special July “Łambinowice Museum Meeting” which inaugurated this year’s season of research conducted within the framework of the project called “The forest of the dead? Searching for the graves of Prisoners of War in the Site of National Remembrance in Łambinowice”.

The guests of the meeting were Dr Dawid Kobiałka – head of the research project – and photographer and documentalist Daniel Frymark. The starting point for the discussion was the visual documentation of the archaeological research carried out since 2022, which – with each successive season – is gaining a greater and greater scientific significance.

It was underlined during the meeting that photography and film do  not hold a solely documentary function today. They make an integral element of the research process through registering the course of field works, relationships between participants of the research as well as social aspects of archaeology. At the same time, visual materials are becoming a subject of ethnographic analyses, broadening the perspective of interpretation of archaeological discoveries.

The participants also had an opportunity to watch the premiere extended version of the documentary film by Daniel Frymark, showing the course of the research conducted on the grounds of Łambinowice Site of Remembrance to date. The film documents not only the successive stages of the archaeological works but also the preparations for the research, cooperation of the interdisciplinary team, and the everyday atmosphere during the work carried out within the space of particular historical significance.

The meeting offered an opportunity to hold a talk on the contemporary archaeologist’s workshop, in which photography and film are becoming an inseparable element of the cognitive process and popularization of research results. Such an approach – combining archaeology with visual anthropology, ethnography and documentary film – distinguishes the project realized in Łambinowice and writes it into the latest world trends of research into heritage.

We thank all the participants for their presence and active participation in the discussion. We are glad to have been able to jointly open the next season of our archaeological research in the Site of National Remembrance in Łambinowice.