"Krankenhaus" (2006)

When you’re in hospital time seems to slow down. Minutes become an eternity and form a thick flowing mass. Insignificant things suddenly become important. Things you normally wouldn’t notice become meaningful. The eye yearns for stimulation. And discovers aesthetics in the disagreeable functional environment, a sort of charm. The Cologne photographer Sibylle Mall (* 1973) captured her perspective photographically during a stay in hospital. Her pictures tell of waiting, of personal functional disability, of the passiveness of heeling: The cross on the wall, the sparse table, the grey functional furniture, the silver triangle, dangling as assistant above the bed. Hospitals are transitory places, temporary in nature. Whoever is in one wants out as quickly as possible.