Schadbilder
Phytograms of plant material with damage patterns
2024, Gartow, Elbe-Seege floodplain

Damage patterns (Schadbilder) are the traces of pests on their host plant.  The term testifies to an anthropocentric, use-orientated, judgemental distinction between pests and beneficial organisms. Put more neutrally: Certain plants play a major role in the various developmental stages of insects, whether as a place to mate, lay eggs, pupate or as food for larvae and caterpillars. Visual traces of this are feeding marks or anomalies such as galls. 
“Schadbilder” expand this co-creation of insects and plants to include other co-creators: light-sensitive material such as photographic paper or film material, developer fluid from river water, plants, soda, vitamin C and, of course, the artist herself. 
Phytograms are both photograms and chemigrams based on a plant-based developer. The interplay of the actors involved also includes chance, unpredictable reactions and disruptive factors. The works are therefore unique and cannot be reproduced.

The “Schadbilder” were created during a residency by Regina Hügli at the Floodwater Residency near Gartow in the Saxonian Seegeniederung. The guest studio of the Westwendischer Kunstverein was built on the initiative of Australian artist Mark Dion as a pile dwelling in the floodplain and nature reserve of the Seege and sees itself as an open-air laboratory for artistic research.
The stay in early summer 2024 during the reproduction period and the caterpillar stage of many insects resulted in an extensive series of works that represents a seasonal inventory of the actors in this specific floodplain landscape.