Gideon Mendel

The ongoing chapter of his work on AIDS, Through Positive Eyes, is a collaborative project with the UCLA Art and Global Health Center. The project works with subjects located in seven cities around the globe, all of whom are HIV positive. The organisation describes the project as telling the "story of HIV/AIDS in the fourth decade of the epidemic" when access to treatment is "far from universal" Developed by Davide Gere at the UCLA, the workshops which form part of the project are led by fellow photographer Crispin Hughes. In this body of work, Mendel’s role has shifted from photographer to enabler, handing the camera over to HIV positive people, who he works with in order to document their stories.

Mendel has a career spanning over 40 years. Originally from South Africa, he is currently based in London. It was his work as a ‘struggle photographer’ during the final years of apartheid that first brought attention to his work.

Since 2007, Mendel has been working on Drowning World, an art and advocacy project about flooding. Currently shortlisted for the Prix Pictet prize, it is his personal response to climate change.

His first book, A Broken Landscape: HIV & AIDS in Africa was published in 2001. Since then he has produced a number of photographic advocacy projects, working with charities and campaigning organizations including The Global Fund, Médecins Sans Frontières, Treatment Action Campaign, the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, ActionAid, the Terrence Higgins Trust, Shelter, Leonard Cheshire Disability, UNICEF and Concern Worldwide.

In the early 1990s he moved to London, from where he has continued to respond to social issues experienced globally. He travels extensively in order to do so, which is reflected by his images focusing on people and societies from countries all over the world. Most of his projects are developed over long periods of time. Video has increasingly become a part if his practice, and he also employs collaborative photography as a means of interacting with his subjects.

One of the major focuses of his work is the issue of HIV/AIDS. Mendel first began documenting HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa in the early 1990s. While awareness about the disease was growing rapidly at the time, antiretroviral treatment (ART) was still very difficult to access for many of the continent's poorest. As a result, the disease was having a very destructive impact on communities across the sub-continent. After covering AIDS in these areas, Mendel started to develop what has been a lifelong focus in his work.

Mendel belonged to part of a generation of 'struggle photographers', committed to documenting the conflict and political upheavals of the 1980s in South Africa. Employed as a news photographer, it was through covering these circumstances that he began his career. He states that in retrospect, he was 'trying to make sense of this turbulent period with no idea that change was so imminent’… and that the ‘experience has strongly influenced my approach to photography ever since'.

Gideon Mendel (born 31 August 1959) is a photographer. His work engages with contemporary social issues of global concern. His intimate style of committed image making, and long-term commitment to projects has earned him acclaim.

Born in Johannesburg in 1959, Mendel studied psychology and African history at the University of Cape Town. He began photographing in the 1980s during the final years of apartheid and produced a number of bodies of work documenting the resultant societal conditions and political climate in South Africa.