Janine Wiedel

Janine Wiedel (born 1947) is a documentary photographer and visual anthropologist. She was born in New York City, has been based in the UK since 1970, and lives in London. Since the late 1960s she has been working on projects which have become books and exhibitions. In the early 1970s she spent five years working on a project about Irish Travellers; in the late 1970s two years documenting the industrial heartland of Britain. Wiedel's work is socially minded, exploring themes such as resistance, protest, multiculturalism and counterculture movements.

Wiedel's books include Irish Tinkers (1976), Looking at Iran (1976), Vulcan's Forge (1979), Dover, a Port in a Storm (1991) and Faces with Voices (1992).

She had solo exhibitions at The Photographers' Gallery in London in 1974 and 1979. She moved to Britain in 1970 to study photography at the Guildford School of Art from 1970 to 1973. Wiedel also photographed the Black Power movement in the late 1960s. The resulting photographs have been published by Café Royal Books (see below).

1970s In 1973 Wiedel spent three weeks living with the Inuit of Pangnirtung on the East coast of Baffin Island in Canada's Northwest Territories. She subsequently published her experience and photographs in the New Humanist magazine in 1974 and the Times Educational Supplement in 1978.

In the early 1970s she spent five years photographing Irish Travellers,

In 1976 Wiedel was commissioned by the publishers A & C Black (UK) and Lippincott (USA), with support from the National Iranian Oil Company, to produce a children's educational book, Looking at Iran. At a time of political unrest in Iran, Wiedel photographed the lives of the people of Tehran.

Classroom interaction was also one of her ongoing projects in the 1970s and 1980s. Wiedel was commissioned by the Times Educational Supplement, Penguin Education and other educational publishers. She provided the photographs for the book A Guide to Classroom Observation by Rob Walker and Clem Adelman in 1975. This book was published in eReader format in 2005. The classroom photographs have been archived by Four Corners Archive.

In 1977 Wiedel was the first photographer to win the West Midlands Arts major bursary. She photographed and documented the lives of people in the West Midlands. For around two years in the late 1970s, Wiedel lived in her Volkswagen van in the Birmingham area photographing a range of people and industries, including miners, chain-makers, steel workers, jewellers and pottery workers.

This resulted in an Arts Council–sponsored book Vulcan's Forge (1979) and an exhibition at The Photographers' Gallery in London in 1979. A related TV programme, England their England: Camera in the Streets, was shown on ATV at 7.30 pm on Tuesday 9 May 1978 and reviewed by Keith Brace in the Birmingham Daily Post. The exhibition was laid out to try to give an impression of the working conditions and the atmosphere of the area. Instead of rows of uniformly sized photographs, there were sections devoted to different industries, some special lighting and audiovisual material as well as the videotape of the ATV programme. Vulcan's Forge was exhibited again in its entirety in 2021 at The Hive in Birmingham and reviewed by Josh Allen in Tribune.

Between 1977 and 1979 Wiedel and Rob Walker collaborated on a research study in a London secondary school. The project was supported by The Centre for Applied Research in Education (CARE) at the University of East Anglia. The study involved photographer and researcher working closely in selected classrooms photographing, interviewing, analysing and exhibiting the results along with feedback from students and teachers. The study was published in Field Methods in the Study of Education edited by Robert G Burgess. Wiedel's photographic contributions appear in chapter 10 'Using Photographs in a Discipline of Words'. Her book Dover: A Port in a Storm (1991) and her solo exhibition Dover and its People: Janine Wiedel (1991) at the Dover Museum and the County Hall Gallery in Maidstone were the results. Wiedel spent a year documenting life in Dover and the changes the Channel Tunnel would bring to the people and their culture, with the series capturing two juxtaposing ways of life in the town.

In 1991 she was awarded a one-year commission from the Gainsborough's House Museum to document the people of Sudbury (Suffolk). Her book on the subject, Faces with Voices, was published in 1992; and the exhibition Faces with Voices: Portraits from an English Community was shown at Gainsborough's House, and opened by Humphrey Spender in 1992. The exhibition then travelled with a British Council visual arts grant to the Goodnow Gallery in Sudbury, Massachusetts in 1994.

2000s Between 2001 and 2005 Wiedel documented the lives of the multicultural community in St Agnes Place, a squatted street in South London. In 2005 two hundred riot police evicted the occupants from 21 of the houses, leaving 150 homeless. Wiedel's photographs are a lasting record of their lives, stories and eventual eviction. Between 2002 and 2006 Wiedel photographed the Rastafarian and BAME community in London which included a food growing and food awareness programme (funded by London 21 and the Scarman Trust) in Brixton. In 2006 Wiedel co-ordinated and organised a talk, Groundation concert and multiscreen photographic presentation of the London Rastafarian community for the Profile Intermedia 9 conference The Tower of Babel at the Power House, Bremen, Germany.

In 2016 Wiedel spent six months photographing in the Calais jungle and the Grande-Synthe refugee camp in Dunkerque, resulting in an exhibition In Transit: Life in the Refugee Camps of Northern France. In 1974 Wiedel established a photo library which continues to be updated. Since 2003 the collection has been in the process of digitisation. She wanted to invoke memories and revisit the images of how people worked and what their workplaces were like in the late 1970s. The exhibition was recreated at The Hive in the Jewellery Quarter of Birmingham from November 2021 to January 2022. This follow-up project included an appeal on local news to the people of Stoke-on-Trent to help find those who appeared in the photographs. As a result, Birmingham author Andy Conway was reunited with Wiedel who had photographed him as a schoolboy waiting at a factory gate 45 years previously.

In 2024 Wiedel republished her book Vulcans Forge, Industries of the West Midlands 1977-1979, in a large format with Bluecoat Press, incorporating a foreword by photographer Josh Allen.

Publications Books by Wiedel Looking at Iran written and photographed by Wiedel. UK: A & C Black, 1976. . Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1976. . Irish Tinkers. UK: Latimer, 1976. . New York: St. Martin's, 1976, 1978. . With a foreword and transcripts by Martina O'Fearadhaigh. Hardback. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1979. Softback. Documentary-Photos, 2013. iBook for iPad and iPhone. Vulcan's Forge, London: Archetype Visual Studies, 1979. . With a foreword by Sue Davis. Catalogue of an exhibition at The Photographers' Gallery, London; Associated Television (ATV) Centre, Birmingham; and Stoke-on-Trent City Museum and Art Gallery (now known as the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery). Dover, a Port in a Storm: Twentieth Century Lives in an English Town. Cross Channel Photographic Mission, 1991. . Faces with Voices. Plymouth: Images, 1992. . Text by June Freeman and photographs by Wiedel. With a foreword by Ronald Blythe. Vulcans Forge, Industries of the West Midlands 1977-1979, Bluecoat Press 2024, ISBN 9781908457813. Large format book with foreword by photographer Josh Allen. Life at the Fence: Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp 1983/84, published by Image & Reality, 2025. St Agnes Place Squat, published by RRB Photobooks, March 2026.

Zines by Wiedel People's Park Berkeley Riots. Southport: Café Royal, 2019. Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp 1983–1984. Southport: Café Royal, 2019. Edition of 250 copies. Coal Mining: The West Midlands 1978. Southport: Café Royal, 2018. Edited by Atkinson. Edition of 250 copies. Black Power: Black Panthers: 1969. Southport: Café Royal, 2017. Later reprinted twice. Black Power: Black Panthers: 1970. Southport: Café Royal, 2017. Second edition, 2017. Edition of 200 copies. Iron and Steel: The West Midlands 1977. Southport: Café Royal, 2017. Edited by Atkinson. Edition of 200 copies. Industry, West Midlands: 1977–1979. Includes seven separate zines in a box set: Industries The West Midlands 1977–1979 (exclusive to this box set), Smiths' Drop Forge: Birmingham 1976, Iron and Steel: The West Midlands 1977, Coal Mining: The West Midlands 1978, Coal Mining: The West Midlands 1978, Chainmaking: The Black Country, West Midlands 1977, The Jewellery Quarter: Birmingham: 1977, and The Potteries: Stoke-on-Trent: 1978. Edition of 100 copies. Saintes Maries Gypsy Festival Camargue 1974. Southport: Café Royal, 2020. Edited by Atkinson. Edition of 250 copies. Picturing Childhood: The Myth of the Child in Popular Imagery. Patricia Holland. London & New York: I.B. Tauris, 2004. . Great Brixton: A Photobook of Brixton's Greatness. The Champion Agency, 2015. and . The British Life Photography Awards: Portfolio 1: The winning images from the inaugural British Life Photography Awards. The British Life Photography Awards (Contributor). London. Ilex, 2015. . British Life Photography Awards: Portfolio 2. Stockport: Dewi Lewis, UK ed, 2016. . British Life Photography Awards: Portfolio 3. BLPA, CLOC Ltd. 2017. Coal Faces, edited by David Gilbert Wright, published by Image & Reality, 2024. Hardback, Paperback.

Exhibitions Solo exhibitions Janine Wiedel, The Photographers' Gallery, London, 1974. Photographs of an Inuit family on Baffin Island and of Irish travellers. Classrooms: Janine Wiedel, The Half Moon Gallery, London, 1977. Classrooms: Janine Wiedel, touring exhibition by The Half Moon Photography Workshop. 1977. Vulcan's Forge: Face of the West Midlands by Janine Wiedel, The Photographers' Gallery, London, 1979. Vulcan's Forge: Janine Wiedel, Stoke-on-Trent City Museum and Art Gallery, 1980. Industries and Life in the West Midlands by Janine Wiedel, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham. 1980. Vulcan's Forge: Janine Wiedel, ATV Centre, Birmingham, 1980. British Women: Janine Wiedel, Invicta Radio Station, Canterbury, 1990. Dover and its People: Janine Wiedel, Dover Museum (as part of the White Cliffs Experience), Dover, 1991. Dover and its People: Janine Wiedel, County Hall Gallery, Maidstone, 1991. Faces with Voices: Portraits from an English community: Janine Wiedel, Gainsborough's House, Sudbury, 1992. Faces with Voices: Portraits from an English community: Janine Wiedel, Focal Point Gallery, Southend, 1992/93. Faces with Voices: Portraits from an English community: Janine Wiedel, Goodnow Gallery, Sudbury, Massachusetts, USA, 1994. Vulcan's Forge: Janine Wiedel, The Hive, Birmingham, 2021/22

Collaborative exhibitions Rastafari 2006: Ras Napthali and Janine Wiedel, Rastafari Documentation Photos at the Profile Intermedia 9 Conference Tower of Babel, 2006, Bremen, Germany In Transit: Life in the Refugee Camps of Northern France, Gallery 101, International Headquarters of The Salvation Army, London, 2017. With Jacky Chapman This exhibition was also shown in the following locations: Dulwich College, London, 2016; South Hampstead High School, London, 2018; The Steeple, Dundee, Scotland, 2019 Black Country Living, Blast! Festival of Photography, Talks and Walks, Sandwell Borough, West Midlands, 2019. With John Myers. Still: Stories from the Jewellery Quarter, Iron House Gallery, Birmingham, 2019. Wiedel's photographs of the Jewellery Quarter were displayed alongside work by Andy Pilsbury and Inès Elsa Dalal.

Group exhibitions WIAC 1900–1975, Women's International Art Club, Camden Arts Centre, London, 1975 Children Photographed, travelling Arts Council exhibition by the Children's Rights Workshop & IKON. First shown at the Shaw Theatre, Euston Road, London, 1976. Art for Society, Whitechapel Gallery, London, 1978 Realising Design, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 1978/79 A Woman's Place: The Changing Picture of Women in Britain. A British Council exhibition first shown at the Royal Festival Hall, London, 1984. The exhibition subsequently toured overseas in 30 countries. Industrial Image: British Industrial Photography 1834–1986, The Photographers' Gallery, London, 1986/87 Black Country Working Women. Arts Council touring exhibition first shown at the Light House Media Centre, Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Wolverhampton, 1990. Resistance is Fertile: The Art of Protest, Ovada Gallery, Oxford, 2015 British Life Photography Awards 2016, The Mall Galleries, London, 2016. Prize winner in two categories, 'Life at Work' and 'Historic Britain'. Industrial Might, Black Country Living Museum, Dudley, 19 May 2018 (part of the Reclaim Photography Festival). Wiedel showed a selection of images from Chainmaking, The Black Country, 1977. You Can't Beat a Woman: The story of the founding of refuges. January 2019. The Minories, Colchester and Espacio Gallery, Bethnal Green Art Against Racism, The Movement Photography Gallery. Online exhibition. 2021. Light Years: The Photographers' Gallery at 50, The Photographers' Gallery, London, 2021/22. War Inna Babylon: The Community's Struggle for Truths and Rights. Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 2021. Intersectional Geographies, Martin Parr Foundation, Bristol, 2022. A group exhibition curated by Jacqueline Ennis Cole. Cafe Royal Books, Documentary, Zines and Subversion, Martin Parr Foundation, Paintworks, Bristol. 14 April – 12 June 2022. Resistance. An exhibition conceived by filmmaker Steve McQueen and curated by Clarrie Wallis, Turner Contemporary, Margate, 22 February - 1 June 2025.

Awards and awarded commissions 1977: West Midlands Arts Award. One year bursary. 1989: Cross Channel Photographic Award, South Eastern Arts. One year commission to photograph the town of Dover before the completion of the Channel Tunnel. 2014: Commended, Historic Britain category, British Life Photography Awards, for "Smith's Drop Forge (1977)". 2015: Winner, Life at Work category, British Life Photography Awards, for "Throwing and Winding, Silk Weaving, West Suffolk". 2015: Winner, Historic Britain category, British Life Photography Awards, for "Standing up against Apartheid, Trafalgar Square, London 1985". 2015: Highly commended, Historic Britain category, British Life Photography Awards, for "After the Queen's Silver Jubilee 1977, Resting with the Queen". 2016: Winner, Life at Work category, British Life Photography Awards. 2016: Winner, Historic Britain category, British Life Photography Awards. 2017: Commended, Life at Work category, British Life Photography Awards, for "Loom-Weaver".

Television and media Camera in the Streets, TV documentary by Associated Television about Wiedel, 1978. Recording held by the BFI Mediatheque archive collection, Brum & Beyond: West Midlands on Screen. A series of oral history interviews with Wiedel, held between 1980 and 1990. Photographers' Gallery Recordings at the British Library, London. Documentary stills from the town of Shildon, Co. Durham after the closure of the railway works. Thames TV, March 3, 1986. BBC Radio Stoke, Hunt for industrial workers in Stoke-on-Trent photos, Lee Blackman interviews Janine Wiedel, 8 December 2021. BBC Midlands Today, Evening News, 13 December 2021. Interview with Mark Bentley, featured in Black & White Photography Magazine, Issue 292, 2024.

Collections Wiedel's work is held in the following permanent collections: Four Corners Gallery, London: 36 works (as of 12 July 2023) Museum of Modern Art, New York: 1 portrait of Edward Steichen