Joschi Herczeg (b. 1975, Basel, Switzerland) is an artist and member of the collective JocJonJosch, which he co-founded along with two other artists in 2009. Much of their work explores the delicate nature of memory through the experience of human relationships. JocJonJosch’s work has been exhibited, collected and performed widely in Switzerland, England and across Europe. Since 2008, Joschi has worked on a series of photographs depicting controlled explosions, using a specially designed system that synchronizes the camera with the explosive materials. The idea arose during a commission on the theme of time as an approach to ways of capturing moments imperceptible to the naked eye. The first series were first constructed by the artist in his Zürich home using utilitarian objects like chairs or lampshades.

“My decision to produce these controlled explosions and freeze them on camera was an attempt to connect the place closest to me to the furthest place in the Universe and to attain some sort of order from chaos. Trying to capture the unpredictable and make it tangible was my attempt at making sense of the world.”

In recent years Joschi also creates explosions as a sort of ritual on demand, for others. Each person embodies a vision into an object that he builds out of different natural materials, which he explodes and is captured in its transformation.