Jo-Anne McArthur - We Animals

We Animals is a longitudinal project by award-winning photographer Jo-Anne McArthur that focuses on animals in the human environment. Shot in 40 countries and used in 100 worldwide campaigns, this project aims to show that "Humans are as much animal as the sentient beings we use for food, clothing, research, experimentation, work, entertainment, slavery and companionship." 

It challenges the barriers that humans have put in place to treat non-human animals as objects and not as "beings with moral significance". "The objective is to photograph our interactions with animals in such a way that the viewer finds new significance in these ordinary, often unnoticed situations of use, abuse and sharing of spaces." 

Aquariums deepen our belief that animals are objects for our use and our entertainment. Aquarium visitors spend a few moments looking at each animal. The animals spend a lifetime looking out at visitors but can never leave.

They say that dolphins are always smiling. This one looks extremely saddened. 

 An estimated ten billion food animals such as cows, goats, chickens and pigs are killed every year in North America alone. This number doesn't even include fish and other marine life.

The last dog available for sale at a meat market in Vietnam.

Every time someone pays a zoo entrance fee, they are perpetuating the myth that animals are on this earth for our pleasure and our use. 

Every human act in support of animal slavery and confinement perpetuates the belief that they exist for our amusement.

What separates a sanctuary from a zoo or any other institution that keeps animals in its care is that it places the best interests of its residents above all else.

Though humans use most animals for food, clothing, work and entertainment, there are a select few, the chosen ones, enlisted and bred to be our companions.

Turkeys on Thanksgiving at a sanctuary

There are many categories of images from this project on the website weanimals.org, so I chose the categories that interested me the most and the images that I found particularly moving. 

Jo-Anne has covered a variety of different aspects of how humans and animals intersect, and there are a range of happy subjects mingled throughout the more upsetting ones. The project has illustrated the many ways in which human interaction affects animals, in both positive and the more common negative ways, and is well suited to a longitudinal study, as there are so many ways in which we interact.