Olivier Amsellem - Long Stay Hospitals: A Time Space

Olivier Amsellem has been developing work around urban landscapes for several years. He photographs what seem to be the most ordinary scenes with the care and attention usually reserved for more noble subjects. He extends this approach, taking an interest in the trace of time in places that accommodate patients for extended stays. They are psychiatric hospitals or rehabilitation centers. The buildings, constructed between 1930 and 1970, have been selected for their architectural qualities and the particularities of the sites where they are set up. The function of these buildings has evolved over the years. They are care units that became obsolete and have been converted for convalescence, or sanatoriums that have been transformed for new uses after the disappearance of tuberculosis.

Olivier Amsellem was born in 1971 in Marseille, where he currently lives and works. He is a 1998 laureate of the International Festival of Fashion and Photography. His work has been shown at the Villa Noailles, Hyères (1998), the Museum for Decorative Arts, Paris (1999), the Atelier of the National Center of Photography, Paris (2001), the Center for Urban and Environmental Architects, Haute-de-Seine (2003), and the Villa Noailles, Hyères (2005). He has published Varations Modernes (Villa Noailles, 2005) and has collaborated with numerous magazines including Purple, Big, Dazed & Confused, Another Magazine, Intersection and Cross.