The Olga Site: History and Transformation – From Hospital to Residential Area.
Ten years have now passed since the Olga site, with its famous Olga Hospital, was demolished.
The demolition and dismantling of buildings usually involve disruption, chaos, and a gradual process of disintegration over an extended period of time.
With the removal and clearing of the buildings on the Olga site, a part of the history of this well-known hospital has come to a definitive end. Over the course of one year, from September 2015 to September 2016, the artist Barbara Karsch-Chaïeb accompanied and documented this dismantling process through photography and video film.
Documentary photography records the continuous transformation of the demolition. By regularly visiting the site, a certain routine and connection developed with the place, the people working there, and the material that was gradually dismantled, sorted, and transported away. These documentary records formed the starting point for later discoveries and perceptions over time, shaping a way of seeing that continuously evolved.
In a further step, photographs were created that show details and fragments of the rubble and remains of the construction site, completely detached from the context of documentary photography. Visible are remnants of materials (stones, cables, metal, wood, plants, doors, windows, and others), graffiti, walls, fragments of masonry, as well as leftovers from the former hospital and items belonging to the demolition company.
Unintentionally, compositions emerged, arranged by vehicles such as excavators and by the people working there. The unfamiliar materials formed their own still lifes, reflecting the beauty of these unusual installations. Chaos and order lay close together; vertical and horizontal lines and edges, as well as the surfaces of walls, doors, containers, and other details, left numerous traces, lines, and drawings through the scattered remains of materials and the relics left behind.
These situations were deliberately sought out through the focus of the camera—noticed, zoomed in on, and captured.
At first, the series titled Clandestine Beauty was created. Further series followed: People and Work, which shows the workers who carried out the demolition. Reliquia is the series that presents gutted, empty building skeletons and ruins. Disappearance–Appearance–Disappearance shows the rooms inside the hospital during the last possible visit, as well as the children’s paintings and drawings on the walls. The series Wild Growth and the series Water were created at the end of the demolition, when almost all of the buildings had disappeared.
The photo above is from March 12, 2016.
Photo Credits: Barbara Karsch-Chaïeb
Bildrechte VG-Bildkunst Bonn
