SANATORIUM
2024
Autotheoretical, memory-based essay
I still remember the strange atmosphere of spirituality and unfamiliarity in these places, withbarred windows and an owl passing the time sitting on a branch. Te peculiar smell – outsideand inside the buildings. Te smell of mountain air with a high content of iodine and essentialoils from nearby forests. Inside, this smell mixed with the smell of the old building, chemicalsused for cleaning, and medical substances.
This essay originates in my childhood experience of spending
six extended stays of one and a half months each in sanatori-ums, first independently at the age of four, and later at seven.
These formative encounters inform an autotheoretical frame-work in which memory and attachment to space function as
sources of knowledge. They shaped my interest in sanatoriaas spatial, social, and ideological constructs, as well as inhauntology and the transformation of symbols within theEastern European context.