"From the series 'Lycopodium'"

Raphael Hefti’s work focuses upon photography and sculpture, the former often having resulted from experiments in the latter. In the series ‘Lycopodium’, colour photograms resembling both fireworks and spores under a microscope are generated by burning spores of the moss plant Lycopodium to expose photographic paper. Lycopodium, known as witch powder in the Middle Ages due to its combination of explosive and healing properties, was used in early photography, explosives and homeopathy. It burns slowly and above the surface of the paper, so that light exposes the photopaper without it burning the surface.