Jason Oddy British, b. 1967
Magnolia Prophylactorium, Odesa, 1999
C-Print
73 x 69 cm; 28 3/4 x 27 3/16 in
with frame 77 x 73 cm; 30 5/16 x 28 3/4 in
with frame 77 x 73 cm; 30 5/16 x 28 3/4 in
Edition of 10
Titled, dated, signed and numbered on reverse
JO0046
In 1999, a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Oddy spent a month on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast. He’d gone there to explore the sprawling network of some...
In 1999, a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Oddy spent a month on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast. He’d gone there to explore the sprawling network of some 2500 sanatoria that had once been an integral part of the Soviet Union’s healthcare system. Traveling between Odessa and Yalta, and armed with his 5x4 large format camera, Oddy’s aim was to coax these institutions that had been the Eastern bloc’s equivalent of spas into revealing something about the obsolete political system that had led to their creation. This enclosed, heated walkway between the main building and the indoor swimming pool at the Magnolia Prophylactorium (once the Buildings, Trains and Roads Prophylactorium) reminiscent of some Tarkovskyesque passageway or perhaps even a corridor to the future that failed.