Consisting of more than 450 portraits from over 20 countries, the Classroom Portraits archive provides a global typological record of the school environment and of the children who are experiencing it in the early part of the twenty-first century. The way pupils dress for school says something about their society, as do the pictures or notices on the walls (or lack of them), put there to inform, motivate or simply decorate. There are often images of historical, cultural, revolutionary, religious or political figures because schools are, of course, a means of imposing social order. There are Buzz Lightyear notebooks, Narnia pencil cases, cannabis lapel badges, as well as the inevitable logos of global corporations. The images confirm that the basic classroom model is always the same wherever you are in the world but also reveal incredible variety within that space. At the vanguard of this diversity are of course the thousands of individuals portrayed, each of them utterly unique. Photographs always immediately refer to the past but implicit in this collection is the future, because the pictures are all of children and adolescents who have their lives ahead of them. They will become doctors, hairdressers, cooks, rickshaw drivers, photographers – any number of destinies awaits them.  There are potential millionaires and celebrities and the law of averages suggests there are certain to be criminals too. Some of them may already have died or even had children of their own.

Preface to the book Classroom Portraits, Prestel, 2012