Born in Antwerp, Belgium, Wini grew up in central Africa, with her sister and brother; their father (Belgian) was a research doctor specializing in tropical diseases, and their mother (French) was a photojournalist.
She received her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, in Visual Anthropology. As a visual documentarian and ethnographer, she worked in Peru, where she conducted her initial fieldwork, as well as in Egypt, Mexico, France, Armenia, Tanzania, and the US.
For several years, she was the Director of a program she founded (with support from the National Endowment for the Arts): the Folk/Traditional Arts Program, at the RI State Council on the Arts, documenting the traditional arts of Indigenous and immigrant communities in the state of RI and the region. She worked at the Smithsonian Institution, managing and curating the annual folk festival on the Washington Mall.
She taught at several colleges and universities, including the City University of New York, Brown University, the School for Visual Arts, and the Rhode Island School of Design. Courses taught have included “Ethnographic Fieldwork”, African Arts”, “The Arts of Mexico”, “Visual Documentation” (history and production), “Sacred Architecture”, “Visual Communication”, “Mythology”, “Ethnomusicology.”
Her films include “The Tree of Iron” (Tanzania, stills and co-editor)*, “A Cambodian Wedding”, (US, director/camera), “Tropical Power” (US, director, editor), “Saudade” (US, p.a., co-editor)*, “Samuel Yellin’s Legacy”** (US, p.a., co-editor)“, “The Cuetos: four generations of puppeteers” (Mexico, producer, director, editor), “The Vagabond Puppeteers” (US, producer, co-director, editor). Her photographs have been exhibited in galleries and museums and published in academic journals.
*Available from Documentary Education Resources. ** Available from Folkstreams
Wini has organized or co-produced several large-scale events, both officially (The Smithsonian, The Cajun/Bluegrass Festival) as well as informal annual community gatherings.
She has been a presenter at several festivals, including The Cajun Bluegrass Festival, The Lowell Folk Festival, and several other regional/notional festivals.
She toured internationally as a musician (percussion)
Skills:
- Visual documentation
- Grant writing
- Editorial advice and academic consultation
- Events production
- Translation (English to French, Spanish to English)