Raphael Hefti

Raphael Hefti uses photography as a starting point from which to explore his wider curiosity about the history of materials, moments and sites of scientific discovery. Manipulating the natural properties of the moss plant Lycopodium is the focus of the two works In the Air and In Memory of Phlogiston. The first work shows witchpowder being emptied out of a Venetian Bellini glass, while the second work uses the same plant pollen, which burns especially gently, to expose the photographic paper to the effects of its slow burning light.

In Memory of Phlogiston 2009
photogram on fibre photographic paper
30x20cm

In the Air 2010
poster, 119x84cm