Abi Palmer says, ‘We’re going to send Sanatorium off into the world the same way I made it, sitting precariously in a blue inflatable bathtub. Expect wonky glamour, boundary-pushing bathtub performances, and balloons where you never expected to see them… Please come to my party! It’s an Out-of-Body book launch designed for staying home.’
A young woman spends a month taking the waters at a thermal water-based rehabilitation facility in Budapest.
On her return to London, she attempts to continue her recovery using an £80 inflatable blue bathtub. The tub becomes a metaphor for the intrusion of disability; a trip hazard in the middle of an unsuitable room, slowly deflating and in constant danger of falling apart.
Sanatorium moves through contrasting spaces — bathtub to thermal pool, land to water, day to night — interlacing memoir, poetry and meditations on the body to create a mesmerising, mercurial debut.
