Christoph Brech is a Munich-based artist. He created a round-arched window. It was especially for the exhibition X-RAY.Entitled The Power of the X-Ray Gaze, it is dedicated to all the workers at theVölklingen Ironworks.Installed40centimetresinfrontofthehistoricoriginalwindowoftheblowerhall, thepiece, titledODEM, displaysX-rayimagesofthelungsofindividualswhoonceworkedinandaroundtheVölklingenIronworks.These anonymised X-ray images were provided by the Lung Centre of the Völklingen SHG Clinics.Some of the images show signs of pneumoconiosis or carcinoma.
Workers at many workplaces in the Völklingen Ironworks, such as the sintering and blast furnace filling plants, were exposed to considerable dust pollution.This is often associated with serious health consequences, such as chronic coughing and shortness of breath.It is therefore the breath, or Odem, that ironworks employees could lose over time as a result of their work.“The lungs are the blower hall of the human body,” explains Christoph Brech.At the same time, the artist identifies his room installation, the blower hall, as the lungs of the Völklinger Hütte.Thisiswheregiganticgasblowermachinesonceproducedthewindthatfuelledtheblastfurnacesforpigironproductionafterbeingheatedtotherighttemperatureinthewindheaters.The Völklinger Hütte organism was supplied with vital air from here around the clock, while the people who powered it often suffered health problems and were deprived of breath.ODEM confronts viewers with human vulnerability in an aesthetic way.
