For decades people with mental illnesses were treated at the Haarer Klinikum. Before the rooms were converted into luxury apartments, students took photos of them. How do you catch it – the fine line between “sick” and “healthy”?
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Bernhard Lohr, hair
Andrej Efimyč Ragin runs a Russian provincial hospital. In ward 6 he got into conversation with the psychiatric patient Ivan Dmitrič Gromov, who suffers from paranoia. Ragin quickly realizes: Gromov is the only sensible person in the provincial town. Both get closer, talk to each other more often and a rival takes the chance to serve Ragin as a madman himself. From the point of view of Andreas Belwe, the story “Sick Room No. 6” by Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) leads to the core of the work for which five of his students wandered through the former hospital rooms of the Isar-Amper-Klinikum with cameras. The photo design students were confronted with their oppressive past and with themselves. Because the line between “healthy” and “sick” is fine. “Nobody should claim that they know how life is,” says Belwe, “anyone can fall out.”