Currently, I am deeply immersed in investigating historical narratives, focusing on the GDR. As the years pass since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the harsh realities of the dictatorship soften in the collective memory. The oppressive nature of the regime—characterised by extensive surveillance, pervasive control, restriction of freedoms, and the silencing of dissent—has faded into the background, overshadowed by nostalgia for certain aspects of the socialist state, such as social security and employment. We also observe a generational shift, resulting in a memory that lacks the intensity of the original experience. As new generations grow up without direct experience of the GDR, their understanding of the period relies heavily on second-hand accounts, history books, and media. These sources fail to convey the full extent of the dictatorship’s impact.

For this new work, I have concentrated on collected material from bevor 1989, a period I experienced firsthand as both a student and teacher during my 26 years in the GDR. I engaged with the language, propaganda, methods of militarisation, and the negativity towards the West and its values, which were instilled in me from early childhood. Among other sources, I used my own notebooks, schoolbooks, old slides from school lessons, negatives from my archive, and literature we had to read at the time.

My aim was to use original artefacts from the period, not as static archival displays, but as integral elements of the artworks. I explored the sculptural possibilities of photography, adding texture and layers to challenge the boundaries of the image. By manipulating and repurposing relics of propaganda and indoctrination, I disrupt the narratives they once held.

Through physical interventions like rolling, folding, and bending, and the use of materials such as resin, and emulsion, I transformed these artefacts, obscuring their original content while preserving their essence. By photographing these sculptures and incorporating the physical objects into the final display, I invite viewers to engage with the work on multiple sensory levels—echoing the multifaceted nature of memory and experience.

The project “Weiser Regen”( White Rain) explores themes of personal nostalgia and conflict. It uses books by Russian authors and projects slides of gamma radiation effects onto rolled paper from the book pages, evoking memories of military indoctrination. The project “Friedenskinder” explores the GDR's contradiction as a "peace state" while enforcing widespread militarisation. Inspired by Reiner Kunze’s banned book “Die wunderbaren Jahre”, which critiqued the militarisation of children, I created an art piece using rolled-up copies of his text in rifle shell cases. In “Pavlov’s Children” and "Faux Diamonds" I revisited my archive of hundreds of black-and-white negatives of students taken in the final weeks before my abrupt reassignment in 1989, just months before the Wall fell. These negatives, now encased in resin and obscured, serve as archival artefacts from a time when conformity was enforced, and dissent was punished.

Ultimately, my work seeks to provoke reflection on the legacy of authoritarianism and the malleability of memory. By preserving the complexities of life under dictatorship, my work serves as a metaphor for the dangers of historical amnesia, reminding us that without conscious effort, the vividness of our shared history can fade, erasing crucial details needed to fully understand the past and its implications for the present and future.