Faux Diamonds uses the same black-and-white negatives of my students that form the basis of Pavlov’s Children. Rather than presenting the negatives as documents of a particular historical moment, I transform them into objects whose original function remains visible but whose physical presence has changed.

The negatives are encased in resin and placed inside wire cages made from champagne bottle tops. Displayed in a tabletop cabinet and lit from above, they resemble suspended gemstones. From a distance they appear precious and almost ornamental; closer inspection reveals fragments of photographic portraits held within a transparent material.

The process creates a tension between preservation and confinement. The resin protects the negatives while making them inaccessible. The wire structures hold them in place while also giving the impression of containment. The original photographic material remains present, but its function has shifted from recording an image to becoming an object in itself.

The cabinet introduces another layer of transformation. It recalls the presentation of precious objects in a display case, but what is being displayed is not a valuable stone but a fragment of a past life. The work moves between document and object, visibility and concealment, preservation and restriction.

The historical circumstances of the negatives remain part of the work. They were made in 1989, shortly before I was forcibly reassigned from teaching. I am interested in what happens when an existing photographic object is physically transformed while remaining recognisable as the thing it once was.

The number of pieces can vary according to the size of the display cabinet, with up to 400 pieces available for production.