In 1989, just before the Berlin Wall fell, I was suddenly reassigned from my first teaching post. Years later, I learned from my Stasi file that I had been deemed “unsuitable”. I remembered one vivid moment from those final weeks: during a flag ceremony, students raised handmade signs and chanted for me to stay.

When I returned to my archive, I found more than 15 rolls of black-and-white film containing portraits of my students from that period. These negatives became the starting point for Pavlov’s Children.

Each negative is individually encased in resin. The process preserves the photographic material while altering its physical form. The resin distorts the negative, making it thicker, heavier and partially inaccessible, while the image remains visible within it. Each resulting mould is unique.

I then photograph these transformed negatives and print the resulting images on 10 × 8-inch matte paper. Arranged in grids, the prints move between photographic record and abstract form. The original negative is still present, but it can no longer be encountered in its original state.

The title refers to Ivan Pavlov’s theory of behavioural conditioning and to the educational environment in which these photographs were made. This historical context remains part of the work, but the process is equally concerned with what happens to an existing photographic object when it is preserved through transformation.

The negatives become something other than what they were, without disappearing. The work asks how much an image can be altered, enclosed or obscured while its original presence remains.

Up to 400 prints, 10 × 8 inches, are available.