Mirja Busch - Puddles and Rain Cycles

Mirja Busch (DE)
is a Berlin-based interdisciplinary artist and artistic researcher. Her work explores modes of co-existing in NatureCulture assemblages, relating to ecology and ecological conditions through multispecies, feminist, and speculative sensibilities. For over a decade, Busch has approached puddles as storied ecologies that articulate planetary processes and personal experiences and serve as sentinels of the water cycle. Busch has developed various modes of archiving and relating to puddles. She maintains an ongoing photographic archive of puddles from around the world, collects puddle water samples, has developed a puddle forensics method to investigate dry puddles, and has invented a scientific language to describe and classify puddles in a differentiated way. Additionally, Busch offers puddle watching tours, taking people to visit and experience puddles in their natural habitat. Currently, she collaborates with ecohydrologists to explore the role of puddles in urban ecologies. Busch aims to open up new perspectives on cities, landscapes, and the climate crisis by exploring the interaction of soil and weather and how human urban practices, site specificity, ecological, and economic conditions can be made visible and experienced through the medium of the puddle.

Puddle Watching – some examples of more than 750 puddles that have been documented.
Puddle Watching - GPS tracking of the Puddle Watching tours. The city map was blanked out. The red dots indicate the places where puddle water was collected.
Collecting puddle water samples. Photo by Isabelle Cordemans
Puddle water sample No. 16 - GPS 51.218898, 4.404457, city center, side street, in front of a parking garage.
Preparing water samples for lab analysis. Photo by Sascha Herrmann.
Puddle Forensics - Images make visible the wet perimeter and actual size of a puddle.