Pavlov's Children, 2024
The severe travel restrictions imposed on citizens in the GDR curtailed personal freedom, creating both geographical and ideological confinement. This system trapped individuals within the narrow limits set by the state, reinforcing a sense of inevitability and stagnation. The GDR traded political freedom for social security and order, hindering personal progress toward self-reliance and responsibility. While the state's rules made life predictable and manageable, they also imposed a profoundly repressive atmosphere.
On a recent trip to Berlin, I visited the school where I began my teaching career. In the summer of 1989, I was abruptly transferred to another school. I hadn’t returned to that building for 35 years. Revisiting it, I struggled to recall the daily activities that took place inside, but the memories of the schoolyard returned vividly. I remembered the final flag ceremony of July 1989, a key event in school life intended to instil socialist ideology. Students were lined up, awaiting announcements, but on this day, they raised handmade posters and shouted in unison, demanding that I stay, knowing I had been forced to leave. Their courage touched me deeply, and four months later, everything changed when the Berlin Wall fell.
Eight years later, I read my Stasi file and discovered that the reason for my sudden reassignment was a final report declaring me "unsuitable" for my teaching role. This realisation prompted me to revisit my photographic archive from that time, where I found over 15 rolls of black-and-white film—hundreds of student portraits taken during the last weeks before my dismissal. Now, 35 years later, I’ve forgotten most of their names, and many of these students are now in their mid-forties.
The project, "Pavlov's Children," explores how individuals, especially children, are conditioned by their environment, education, and social systems. Named after Ivan Pavlov's work on classical conditioning, it reflects on the methods used by the GDR to shape young minds. Through this project, I also reflect on the resurgence of authoritarian sentiments in contemporary politics, highlighting the importance of vigilance in safeguarding democratic values.
Each portrait has been treated as an archival artefact. The negatives were encased in resin, a process that distorts and transforms them. Each mould is handcrafted and unique. This process echoes how both the students and their memories have been shaped, distorted, and altered by time and ideology.
In displaying "Pavlov’s Children," I intend to show hundreds of prints, responding to the notion of the collective versus the individual. The mass of images evokes the collective experience of state-controlled education, where personal identities were overshadowed by the state’s expectations. Yet, the slight variations in each resin mould emphasise that despite the collective conditioning, individual stories and identities endure. This tension between conformity and individuality, between the collective and the personal, lies at the heart of the work.
The prints, mounted on foam board and arranged in a grid, are designed to float on the wall, offering flexibility in scale, from 36 images to as many as 400 or more. The handcrafted nature of each piece, with its unpredictable variations, reflects how individuals were shaped by external forces, with the hope that they retained a sense of their unique selves Through this display, I aim to honour the students I taught and to reflect on the lasting effects of a system that sought to mould them into ideological conformity.
On a recent trip to Berlin, I visited the school where I began my teaching career. In the summer of 1989, I was abruptly transferred to another school. I hadn’t returned to that building for 35 years. Revisiting it, I struggled to recall the daily activities that took place inside, but the memories of the schoolyard returned vividly. I remembered the final flag ceremony of July 1989, a key event in school life intended to instil socialist ideology. Students were lined up, awaiting announcements, but on this day, they raised handmade posters and shouted in unison, demanding that I stay, knowing I had been forced to leave. Their courage touched me deeply, and four months later, everything changed when the Berlin Wall fell.
Eight years later, I read my Stasi file and discovered that the reason for my sudden reassignment was a final report declaring me "unsuitable" for my teaching role. This realisation prompted me to revisit my photographic archive from that time, where I found over 15 rolls of black-and-white film—hundreds of student portraits taken during the last weeks before my dismissal. Now, 35 years later, I’ve forgotten most of their names, and many of these students are now in their mid-forties.
The project, "Pavlov's Children," explores how individuals, especially children, are conditioned by their environment, education, and social systems. Named after Ivan Pavlov's work on classical conditioning, it reflects on the methods used by the GDR to shape young minds. Through this project, I also reflect on the resurgence of authoritarian sentiments in contemporary politics, highlighting the importance of vigilance in safeguarding democratic values.
Each portrait has been treated as an archival artefact. The negatives were encased in resin, a process that distorts and transforms them. Each mould is handcrafted and unique. This process echoes how both the students and their memories have been shaped, distorted, and altered by time and ideology.
In displaying "Pavlov’s Children," I intend to show hundreds of prints, responding to the notion of the collective versus the individual. The mass of images evokes the collective experience of state-controlled education, where personal identities were overshadowed by the state’s expectations. Yet, the slight variations in each resin mould emphasise that despite the collective conditioning, individual stories and identities endure. This tension between conformity and individuality, between the collective and the personal, lies at the heart of the work.
The prints, mounted on foam board and arranged in a grid, are designed to float on the wall, offering flexibility in scale, from 36 images to as many as 400 or more. The handcrafted nature of each piece, with its unpredictable variations, reflects how individuals were shaped by external forces, with the hope that they retained a sense of their unique selves Through this display, I aim to honour the students I taught and to reflect on the lasting effects of a system that sought to mould them into ideological conformity.
