Franki Raffles (1955–1994) was a British photographer whose socio-documentary work foregrounded the lived realities of women from the 1970s through the early 1990s. Her photographs—often accompanied by interviews with her subjects—examined the diverse working lives of women in Scotland, parts of the former Soviet Union (Russia, Georgia, and Ukraine), China, Zimbabwe, the Caribbean, and Israel and Palestine. Through over 40,000 images created before her untimely death in 1994, Raffles worked as an activist with a camera, interweaving her observations of social and gender inequality with a call for global solidarity.

This exhibition at the Museum of Labour offers an insight into Franki Raffles's work, drawing attention to the questions posed by this feminist photographer that remain relevant today, despite all the changes and developments of recent decades.

Raffles was born in 1955 in Salford, a suburb of Manchester, and spent her childhood in London. From 1973 to 1977, she studied philosophy at the University of St Andrews, where she first became involved in the women's movement. In the early 1980s, she moved to Edinburgh and established herself as a freelance photographer. There, she developed a practice that combined traditions of socio-documentary photography with feminist perspectives. Following her early death in 1994, her photographs were carefully preserved in a cupboard at her family home. Since 2015, her estate has been housed at the University of St Andrews, and is now on view for the first time in a major solo exhibition in Germany.

Exhibition runs until 06.09.2026

Foundation Historical Museums Hamburg
Museum of Work
Wiesendamm 3
22305 Hamburg

www.shmh.de