Timeline
1955: Franki is born in Salford on 17 October 1955. Parents Gillian (nee Posnansky) and Eric Raffles. She has two older sisters, Sally and Emma, and a younger brother, Hugh.
1963: Family move to London.
1964: Mother Gillian establishes Mercury Gallery, Cork Street, London.
1965: Franki attends Lady Eleanor Holles School, Hampton, London.
1971: Franki joins a trip to travel to the Soviet Union and visit Moscow and Leningrad.
1973: Franki leaves Lady Eleanor Holles school and spends the summer working as a lifeguard in Tel-Aviv, Israel.
1973: Franki matriculates as a student at the University of St Andrews.
1977: Franki graduates from St Andrews with an MA (Hons) in Moral Philosophy.
1978: Franki moves to the Isle of Lewis to renovate Callanish Farm. It is while at Callanish that Franki begins to experiment with photography.
1979: Birth of daughter, Anna.
1981: Franki’s image taken while on Lewis published in the Stramullion Herstories 1982 Calendar.
1982: Franki moves to Edinburgh and begins to establish herself as a freelance photographer.
1983: Franki is awarded a Kodak Bursary in order to undertake a project at Pinewood Special School in Edinburgh. The project seeks to engage the children at the school in taking and developing photographs, and will subsequently be published as We Can Take Pictures. Whilst working on this project, Franki meets her future partner Sandy Lunan, who is a teacher at the school.
1984-85: Franki, Sandy and Franki’s daughter Anna travel across the Soviet Union, into China, Tibet, Nepal, India, Hong Kong and The Philippines. Throughout these travels, Franki photographs, making images documenting the lives of women, and specifically women at work. Many of the images made throughout this period will appear in later exhibitions.
1985: The booklet documenting We Can Take Pictures is published by Community Service Volunteers. Images from the project are also exhibited at the House of Commons. Travels to Mexico with her mother Gillian.
1986: Franki continues working as a freelance photographer in Edinburgh. A series of her images made in Mexico are used in the exhibition, Mexican Masks, at the Mercury Gallery, London. Images from her travels, Women of China and Tibet, are exhibited at the First of May Gallery, Edinburgh. Franki photographs the 13th Commonwealth Games that are being held in Edinburgh. Birth of Sandy’s daughter, Nikki.
1987: Franki’s images from the 1986 Commonwealth Games are exhibited throughout Edinburgh in a travelling exhibition entitled Simply Women. Later in 1987 Franki begins work on the To Let You Understand project with Edinburgh District Council’s Women’s Committee documenting women’s working lives across the city.
1988: Work continues on To Let You Understand. Through a commission from Stills Gallery, Edinburgh, Franki secures a residency to photograph at Drummond High School. Images from her travels in China are exhibited as Women in China at The Corridor Gallery, Glenrothes, Fife. Publication of Photographers with Special Needs, a project continuing the work started in We Can take Pictures, and extending the reach of the project with adults with learning difficulties.
1989: Franki’s images from Drummond High are included in Stills Gallery Picturing Women exhibition. Franki undertakes a two month residency in the Dominican Republic funded by The Commonwealth Institute to celebrate International Women’s Day. Over the summer she spends three months in the Soviet Union on a trip supported by the Glasgow Festival Unit and the Scottish Arts Council.
1990: Images from the Soviet trip are exhibited as Women Workers, in a joint exhibition held in at the Pearce Institute, Glasgow, as part of Glasgow’s programme of events as European City of Culture, and in Rostov-on-Don.
1991: Research begins on Zero Tolerance. Birth of Franki’s son Joe.
1992: First Zero Tolerance campaign (Prevalence) is launched. This is a high profile campaign to highlight the issue of men’s violence against women and children. Its innovative approach attracts widespread attention and some controversy.
1992/93: Franki secures a Wingate Trust Scholarship to travel to Israel to work on Lot’s Wife, a project documenting the lives of Russian Jewish women who have emigrated to Israel. The work is intended to be exhibited and published in book format.
1994: Franki dies on 6th December as a result of complications after the birth of twin daughters, Sarah and Kate.