Ieva Raudsepa. Closed for Crisis / Take Care of Each Other

Thomas Mann’s novel The Magic Mountain (1924) takes place in a sanatorium in the Swiss Alps. Using realist and symbolist strategies, Mann examines illness and healing in relation to societal structures, exclusionism, and class.

Ever since people started moving to Southern California for its pronounced miracle climate in the late 19th century, it has fed the myth of a location where the healthy can get even healthier. The video Closed for Crisis/Take Care of Each Other engages with the wellness culture in Los Angeles, an industry much like the symbolic figure of the Magic Mountain – a place with a paradoxical nature of being the source and the cure for the ills it uncovers. The main protagonist of our story moves to Los Angeles, gets a job at an imagined juice bar and starts dating a young art student. Drawing inspiration from existing wellness businesses and the contemporary art world, the video speaks of an environment that feeds off of the push and pull relationship between greedy indifference and psychophysical healing in a capitalistic world.