Gideon Mendel

Gideon Mendel

Gideon Mendel’s intimate style of image-making and long-term commitment to socially engaged projects has earned international recognition.

Born in Johannesburg in 1959, Gideon began his career as a news and ‘struggle’ photographer documenting the final years of apartheid. This experience marked him deeply, and much of his subsequent work has been engaged with the key issues facing his generation. In 1991 he moved to London, and continued to respond to global concerns, especially HIV/ AIDS. Since 2007, using stills and video, Gideon has been working on Drowning World; an art and advocacy project about flooding that is his personal response to our climate crisis.

His work has been widely published in magazines and newspapers including National Geographic, Geo and the Guardian Weekend. His images have been used in climate protests while his photographs; installations and video pieces are increasingly seen in gallery and museum contexts.

Mendel has received the inaugural Jackson Pollock Prize for Creativity and the Greenpeace Photo Award. Shortlisted for the Prix Pictet in 2015 and 2019, he has also received the Eugene Smith Award for Humanistic Photography, the Amnesty International Media Award, and six World Press awards. Mendel has recently extended his work on global warming to include the element of fire, along with developing new projects addressing the Covid-19 crisis we are all facing.


Image: Marco Frith performs his 'A Song For The Forest' in the devastated Wadbilliga National Park. New South Wales, 2020. Panoramic photograph by Annette Widitz

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