From Life Reform to Wellness, Material, Zürich, Offset Print, 47 x 32 cm, 2019

In collaboration with Rosie Eveleigh, Line-Gry Hørup, Leila Peacock and Melina Wilson

 

The first Alpine sanatorium was built in Davos in the late 19th century. Inspired by a modernist impulse, practitioners developed holistic therapies focussing on fresh and uncontaminated air, sun, rest and alimentation – mainly to overcome tuberculosis. With the discovery of the first antibiotic cure in the 1940s, the sanatoriums began their fall from grace. The once magnificent and respected medical facilities would be deserted. Today, most are repurposed as wellness hotels or rehab clinics.

 

At all times, the sanatoriums proved to be a meeting place to discuss such things as health, medicine, mysticism, politics, literature or art. Keeping up the tradition, the contributors of this issue languished on the snowy balconies of Davos and Crans-Montana, or reported from Agra, Asheville and Helwan. Some pondered on Lebensreform and fascist drifts, while others dwelled upon the idea of the sanatorium being the backdrop of countless works of fiction.

 

Melina Wilson