Céline Burnand: Retour à Helwan–La Maison des vivants (en)
By Miriam Edmunds
The tuberculosis-stricken hero from Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain [Der Zauberberg] travelled to Davos for treatment in a fancy sanatorium. From there he reports how the bored bourgeoisie lived in a ‘mixture of death and amusement’[1] while waiting for a cure.
Although numerous, formerly luxurious sanatoria appear to tell the story of the disease (in Switzerland as well as elsewhere), tuberculosis was mainly a disease of the poor. These people living in cramped living conditions could not afford stays in the exclusive Swiss sanatoria and succumbed to the aerosol-borne disease by the thousands. Between 1916 and 1925, over 50,000 people died in Switzerland.[2]
The tuberculosis specialist René Burnand (1882–1960) worked as director of the Leysin sanatorium in Vaud. In 1926 he learned that the Egyptian King Fouad was looking for a candidate to establish a tuberculosis hospital in Egypt. The new clinic was to be located in Halwan, 30 kilometres south of Cairo. As with the Swiss sanatoriums, the location was excellent: on a hill at the edge of the desert, overlooking the country.
The Swiss René Burnand moved to Egypt with his family. During his time at the Fouad Clinic, Burnand took over 700 photographs and wrote several books. Céline Burnand (*1987), his great-granddaughter, followed in her great-grandfather’s footsteps during an artist residency in Egypt and used his archive as the basis for her current exhibition Retour à Helwan — La Maison des vivants. In 2016, the photographer travelled to Cairo and went in search of the remains of the clinic. Helwan had meanwhile developed into an industrial city. Nevertheless, Céline Burnand was advised by the local population not to go to the former Fouad clinic alone. The building now belongs to the Ministry of Religious Endowments (Awqaf) and is in a desolate state. The ruin is inhabited by stray dogs and gangsters. This made access to the building difficult for the photographer.[3] Still, Céline Burnand managed to step inside the former sanatorium after many conversations with the people living there.
In the exhibition, visitors are invited to take this step as well. Access to the exhibition rooms is blocked by a room-filling curtain in the corridor. Actively, one has to push aside the piece of cloth on which a photograph of the men now living on the grounds of the former sanatorium is printed. Behind it is an interesting mix of historical and new material. Among them the book Al Hayat. Sanatorium du désert, written by René Burnand. It is accompanied by photographic and film footage of the site by Céline Burnand. The photographs impressively show how the place has changed over time. Today it is a space of decay and desolation, where crime, poverty and misery prevail. This contrasts with the former function of the place, where tuberculosis patients hoped for recovery and could find their courage to live again. But also Céline Burnand presents elements of hope in her works. Above all, the films of dancers moving among the ruins of the former sanatorium build a bridge to the past of the house. The dancers symbolise how the former patients were able to rise again and regain movement and body control through their stay in the clinic. Recovery is expressed in dance in Céline Burnand’s work. René Burnand had created a place where people found their way back to life. Céline Burnand has found people who have revived the former sanatorium.
The exhibition Retour à Helwan — La Maison des vivants is presented at Photoforum Pasquart from 12 September to 21 November 2021.
Miriam Edmunds is an historian specialising in photography. She is research associate at Photoforum Pasquart.
