[8] Her work in photography and video at first appear like most other journalistic methods of documentation seen in television and documentaries, but after further examination it becomes apparent that they do not conform to mass-media conventions.

[9] Wearing's work reveals that the camera does not take a neutral stance towards its object, but is rather a powerful mass-media organ that breaks down the divide between public and private.

There is a recurring pattern in her work where she plays and mocks the idea of the artist as anthropologist, but her anthropological activities do not focus on discovering a foreign culture but instead challenges what we thought we already knew.

[12] How Wearing approaches her subjects then is by inviting the individual to include their own articulation of thought into the picture within the space that she has provided, rather than an objective documentation.

[11] In an interview with Donna De Salvo, Wearing states: "For me, one of the biggest problems with pure documentary photography is how the photographer, like the artist, engineers something to look like a certain kind of social statement—for instance, you can make someone look miserable, when this is just one side, a nuance of their personality.

[15] In Russell Ferguson's "Show Your Emotions" he draws Wearing's use of mask draws to an older tradition that runs back to at least as far as classical Greek tragedy: "One in which the mask functions not so much to substitute one identity for another as to obliterate the superficial aspects of physical appearance in order to reveal more fundamental truths".

Call Gillian (1994) is a 30-minute long video where Wearing recruited strangers through posting an ad in Time out magazine and provided a space where participants would confess their terrors and fantasies to the camera, their identity protected by costume masks.

[19] Wearing initially wanted to ask for permission to film the woman, although she decided to cover her own face with bandages and reenact what she had seen instead.

[19] Her walk was documented discreetly from behind and there was a hidden camera installed inside of the mask, capturing onlookers' horrid reactions.

[19] These expensive silicone masks deteriorate easily after use, turning the photo shoot into a performative act where the action is unrepeatable.

[7] At first the image appears like a backlit group portrait of British police officers but after further examination the slight movements that they make reveals that it is in fact a video.

In the early 1990s, Wearing started putting together photography exhibitions that were based around the idea of photographing anonymous strangers in the street who she had asked to hold up a piece of paper with a message on it.

In Wearing's Broad Street (2001), she documents the behavior of typical teenagers in British society who go out at night and drink large amounts of alcohol.

[26] In 2003, Wearing caused controversy with her cover for The Guardian's G2 supplement, consisting solely of the handwritten words "Fuck Cilla Black".

[28] Wearing's 2010 show People (2005–2011) at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery included work ranging from video, to photographic portraiture, to installation and sculpture.

Snapshot (2005) is a series of seven single-projection videos framed by a candy-colored array of plasma screens, each depicting different stages of the female life cycle—from the innocence of early childhood to old age.

In this way each participant goes on to star in their own short, which, while encompassed by director Gillian Wearing's documentary, appears as its own moment of narration.

[32] In 2012, a major retrospective of her work was held at Whitechapel Gallery, London (March–June 2012), which surveyed her career and premiered new films and sculptures.

[33] The exhibition was organised with Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf and supported by Maja Hoffmann, Vicky Hughes and John Smith, and Dr Naomi Milgrom AO.

[33] An accompanying monograph was published by Ridinghouse and included texts by curator Daniel Herrmann, Doris Krystof, Bernhart Schwenk and David Deamer.