About | The Project

NEWS: In Saskatchewan flying embers from a wild fire destroyed the iconic Robertson Trading Store, which burnt down to the ground in June 2025. A place that was a hub for the WorkSpace project throughout many years. On Grand Manan Island the fish weir that became an important part of the 2016 WorkSpace production will be taken down this year, as there is no fish in the nets anymore. On these accounts Sara Dorow from the UofA and Martin Weinhold decided they should point out to aspects of climate change and its effects on work reality. Here is the most recent article: The Conversation

In German only - Martin Weinhold zu Gast bei Prof. Klaus Dörre. Die Geschichte von 18 Jahren Projektarbeit mit WorkSpace Canada und dazu die Geräusche der Arbeitswelten, die seit 2011 aufgenommen wurden. Eine gekürzte Fassung der Sendung kann in der Mediathek von Radio OKJ immer noch angehört werden: Radio OKJ website.

WorkSpace was launched by Martin Weinhold in the fall of 2006. His documentary mission: capturing the western world of work in the early 21st century as complete as possible, using Canada as a vast, diverse and complex sample. Weinhold pursued the project constantly from 2006 until 2024. Over the years an overall portrait of modern Canada emerged, as Weinhold depicted people and their fields of work in the entire country. For research and photography he spent several weeks up to months in the respective area, province or territory. WorkSpace Canada is a profound artistic portrait study and a work of visual sociology. As of 2025, the project is considered complete, though some complementing photography will take place in 2026. WorkSpace’s sister project WorkLife will be presented in Edmonton, Alberta, in the fall of 2026.

Exploring the relationship between person and workplace is the project’s central idea. Weinhold wants to capture how daily work coins us, how it is shaping our personalities. His portraits contain a double depiction: they introduce the person through facial expression and body language, as well as by composition, how people are embedded in their immediate environment.
An important inspiration for the project came from Hannah Arendt. WorkSpace was actually triggered by her book The Human Condition, where Arendt distinguishes between labour, work and action as different qualities of work and their varying potential for realizing our human capacities within a limited life time.

At present the WorkSpace collection consists of 5,000 selected photographs. All Images were produced using black and white medium format film. On occasion of the Covid-19 pandemic a project extension was initiated in 2020/2021. It is called Work-Life in Canada: Portraits of continuity and change in the meaning of work. Previous protagonists were revisited in 2021, 2023 and 2024 for a second portrait and interviewed about their work life biography by experienced sociology field researchers like Sara Dorow, Karen Foster and Angele Alook. Main partner for the WorkLife project is Prof. Sara Dorow and the University of Alberta, Dalhousie and York University became important collaborators subsequently.

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About | The Project’s Author

Martin Weinhold grew up in East-Berlin. He is a freelance photographer, author and instructor for visual media. He found his main artistic interest in social documentary photography. His independent art works explore their subject with great endurance and depth, the contextualized portrait is his particular passion. A main influence for his art practise are the portraits by New Objectivity painters like Otto Dix or Christian Schad. Weinhold considers the portrait process a true dialogue situation, the resulting photograph being its visible translation. He also believes in working on analogue material. In his eyes the limitations of this material are a means for keeping the artistic discipline. The same applies to the craft of photographic printing that he performs in his own darkroom facilities. Weinhold studied Communication in Social and Economic Contexts at the University of the Arts in Berlin. For many years he was cameraman for various German TV channels. He is based in Berlin and Toronto.

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WorkSpace portraits presented in Deichtorhallen Hamburg in 2023 / 2024 as part of the exhibition “Dix and the Present”.

Selected publications and pictures about the WorkSpace project: