The jury for the 5th PICTO LAB / EXPERIMENTING WITH IMAGES residency met in March and chose the rich and luminous project by Swiss artist Anna Katharina Scheidegger, FRAGILE WARNING LIGHTS, about marine plankton.

Residency project :

«Marine plankton is one of the main supports for the existence of our own species. Not only does it form the basis of the marine food chain, but it also captures a significant proportion of atmospheric carbon dioxide and emits oxygen through photosynthesis. These micro-organisms account for just 1% of the planet’s total plant mass, but produce more than half the oxygen we breathe. This lung of the planet is under threat. Since the 1950s, phytoplankton populations have fallen by 40%.

FRAGILE WARNING LIGHTS is a photographic study of the characteristics of phytoplankton with bioluminescence (in particular Dinophytes, also known as Dinoflagellates). Bioluminescence is the emission of light by living organisms, resulting from a chemical reaction that converts chemical energy into visible light. To create the images for FRAGILE WARNING LIGHTS, I use photography in the etymological sense of the term: I write with light.

«The photogram technique (one of the most direct processes in photography, perfected in particular by Man Ray) involves placing an object on a photosensitive surface. After exposure, the object remains visible in the form of a luminous trace. By placing bioluminescent plankton on a film base, the film is exposed solely by the light emitted by the plankton. The instantaneous flashes of light and the agitation of the plankton are thus fixed in an image which, by recording the movement, captures the gradations and visually creates depth.

I’d like to take my research into the creation of images with bioluminescent plankton a step further, by extending it to other micro-organisms beyond Pyrocystis lunula, which I used for the first images, and test the importance of temperature, linked to the intensity of the light emissions.

I’d also like to experiment with film shots, which allow me to enlarge the images. Through this enlargement, the excessively small size of the plankton offers another reading: the images relate to the infinitely large.

However, the aim of this work is not to document the catastrophe, but to show the beauty of these declining micro-organisms. The interpretation of the impact of global warming on plankton is made through the bioluminescence, emitted under the effect of stress, as a matter of course».

Anna Katharina Scheidegger’s application is sponsored by Beatrice Brunner Gallery in Bern, Switzerland.

The jury was made up of :

– Delphine Dumont, Director – Hangar
– Jehan de Bujadoux, Director – Clémentine de la Féronnière Gallery
– Patrice Baron, Printer – PICTO
– Ariane Tronel, Project manager – a ppr oc he salon
– Eric Levy, Director – rentingART
– Sylvie Thieriot – Director – Nielsen Design France
– Sandrine Marc, Laureate 2024
– Vincent Marcilhacy, Director – Picto Foundation.

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