The Lives of the Unholy are a visual archaeology of the city of Warsaw, an attempt at looking closely at the phenomenon of the destruction of monuments in Poland in times of political transformation. Today the fact that Warsaw was rebuilt after the war as a promise of a social utopia is practically invisible. Its post-war roots have become hieroglyphs. This book is an attempt at a visual reading of the city’s hidden grammar, of the mute language it speaks.

Krzysztof Pijarski, *1980 in Trinec, Czech Republic. Lives and works in Warsaw and Lodz, Poland.