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Captive
In this follow-up to We Animals, Canadian photojournalist Jo-Anne McArthur explores zoos and aquaria, and how “we” animals interact with “those” animals. In over one hundred photographs, Captive reveals the lives of animals in zoos and aquaria around the world. McArthur photographed animals in these situations for over a decade, and the book will include images from over 20 countries on five continents, shot most recently in the last year while she was working with The Born Free Foundation in Europe. The book has contributions from Virginia McKenna, co-founder of the Born Free Foundation, philosopher Lori Gruen, and Ron Kagan, CEO of the Detroit Zoo. We’re at an important point in history right now. More than ever, ordinary people are thinking about the ethics of keeping animals in captivity for our entertainment. This reflection will help propel us into a new era of (re)considering our relationship with other animals. Captive aims to be a part of these important discussions.
208 pages, Paperback
Published April 15, 2017
1 person is currently reading
118 people want to read
About the author
Jo-Anne McArthur
8 books52 followersBased in Toronto, Canada, Jo-Anne McArthur is a photojournalist who brings a compassionate eye and a natural ability to her work. Though Jo-Anne shoots portrait, editorial, food and event photography in Toronto and the surrounding area, she also spends 4 - 6 months of each year abroad working on her documentary project We Animals. She is curious, open, and engaged, and approaches each project and assignment with enthusiasm and care.
Jo-Anne’s We Animals project, which began over a decade ago, highlights the ways in which human and animal cultures are intertwined. The central premise is that humans are just as much animal as the sentient beings used for food, clothing, research, experimentation, entertainment, work, slavery and companionship. Her project lays bare the complicated emotions and exploitations inherent in many human-animal relationships through photographs that defy the stereotypical in-your-face animal advocacy. She has shot for We Animals in over 30 countries and maintains a rigorous schedule of research and travel to keep it going. Her first book, We Animals, is published by Lantern Books, and she is also the subject of the Canadian documentary The Ghosts in Our Machine.
To date, Jo-Anne and the We Animals project have received several grants and garnered accolades such as the Canadian Empathy Award (in the arts category) and nominated by CBC as one of Canada's Top 50 Champions of Change.
Some of Jo-Anne’s clients include ELLE Canada, Der Spiegel, National Geographic Traveler, Canadian Geographic Magazine, Canadian Living Magazine and Sotokoto Magazine, and she guest lectures regularly in North America. Over 100 not-for-profit organizations have used We Animals images to help further their cause to end animal suffering.
Jo-Anne’s We Animals project, which began over a decade ago, highlights the ways in which human and animal cultures are intertwined. The central premise is that humans are just as much animal as the sentient beings used for food, clothing, research, experimentation, entertainment, work, slavery and companionship. Her project lays bare the complicated emotions and exploitations inherent in many human-animal relationships through photographs that defy the stereotypical in-your-face animal advocacy. She has shot for We Animals in over 30 countries and maintains a rigorous schedule of research and travel to keep it going. Her first book, We Animals, is published by Lantern Books, and she is also the subject of the Canadian documentary The Ghosts in Our Machine.
To date, Jo-Anne and the We Animals project have received several grants and garnered accolades such as the Canadian Empathy Award (in the arts category) and nominated by CBC as one of Canada's Top 50 Champions of Change.
Some of Jo-Anne’s clients include ELLE Canada, Der Spiegel, National Geographic Traveler, Canadian Geographic Magazine, Canadian Living Magazine and Sotokoto Magazine, and she guest lectures regularly in North America. Over 100 not-for-profit organizations have used We Animals images to help further their cause to end animal suffering.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 14, 2018
I looked at these photos and felt WTF?! WTF, how can anyone think that this is all right? How can we do this to animals? How?
August 23, 2017
After the poignancy of We Animals by the same author- Jo-Anne McArthur- I knew that I'd be in for a traumatic ride... I was right.
This had a very different feel to We Animals, though. This had a real feeling of desperation, urgency, loneliness, humiliation, objectification, melancholy and above all, exploitation.
In my pre vegan days, I was a voluntary assistant zoo keeper. I was never forced to confront the darker side of captivity because I believe this is hidden from just about everybody, including many staff members themselves.
But this book forced me to think back over my zoo days and, essentially, gave me terrible flashbacks. I remember lions pacing the same fence perimeters for hours and hours on end, until they'd eventually eat, then return to pacing. I remember the bats, all huddled together in a room beaming with daylight despite them being nocturnal. I remember the alligator who I never saw move a single muscle in the entire 6 months I volunteered there. In short, this truly forced me to confront some of my own demons but also drove me to want to do more to help the current prisoners.
I truly believe that anthropomorphism is something essential when observing animals in a captive setting. I understand that it is heavily frowned upon, but to me, it's a huge part of being an empathetic human being and I was glad that I could look at each individual picture whilst putting myself in place of the animal.
What shocked me most about this book was how boring everything was. Every single cage looked barren and bare, like some sort of wasteland or even a post apocalyptic war zone. There was so much concrete. So much repetition. Exactly like a prison.
In fact, many pictures reminded me of old photos from World War II of concentration camps. Some put me in mind of supposedly haunted abandoned buildings. A couple actually reminded me of factory farms that I've visited myself. But for some reason, the ones that upset me the most were the industrial looking ones. The ones where you could see roads and shops in the background. Those, to me, were the ultimate insult. To put such majestic wild creatures amidst such human chaos is barbaric and something that I can only hope we look back upon in horror some day.
Everything was shockingly artificial. It made me sick to see images of animals laying on hard concrete slabs in indoor warehouses whilst their walls were painted with wild jungles or Arctic tundras. Jo-Anne was right- it really is all for we animals and nothing about these places truly mimicked their natural habitats. It was all an illusion. A distraction for the consumer. I say "consumer" because that's what we are. We're just consumers in a capitalist society, feeding the CEOs at the top whilst buying their food, their plush zoo animals and gawking at inmates.
Jo-Anne's words truly resonated with me and moved me to tears on more than one occasion. The way she spoke about the animals that paced really did break me in two. It put me in mind of my own rescued cat. When we first took him in, he was too young to go outside alone so we made the-very wrong- decision to keep him indoors. What ensued was a slow descent into madness. Continual pacing. Crying. Frustration. Strange, stereotypys as a result of the mental torment he was suffering. Suffice to say, we granted him his freedom very soon after this, but he was lucky. These animals won't be granted their freedom. They'll have to live how my own cat lived for the rest of their painful lives. And that truly hurts to even begin to contemplate.
What was amazing to me is seeing everyone around these animals. It's so degrading watching families taking selfies with desperately unhappy animals, but this is the generation we're living in. We don't even stop to think about how embarrassing this is. How desperate these animals must feel when they reach their hands through the bars, longing for something new, something more. How alone these animals must feel, particularly ones who are in groups constructed by humans or even animals who live completely alone. And of course, how objectifying it all is. Once upon a time, disfigured humans were captured and enslaved for circuses and freak shows, and we gawked at them in awe and amazement. We are doing the exact same thing now, and it's an abomination. Just desperately pitiful.
When humans are abducted by fellow humans, we always hear the horror stories about how they were locked in cellars, garages, warehouses or sometimes even boxes. Always barren, confined spaces where they are forced into submission, their control completely removed and are almost thrown into autopilot where their routine is constant, never changing. What we are doing to animals in zoos and aquaria put me in mind of this and made my stomach churn. Humans who are lucky enough to survive such ordeals can share their stories and experience freedom. Animals are unable to speak a human language, unable to tell us that they're bored, hungry, lonely or frightened.
What amazed me whilst looking through this book is that space became irrelevant. When I first made the purchase, I half expected this book to be full of such cramped conditions that the animals would be unable to even turn around. But oddly enough, space wasn't even something I was particularly noticing. There simply wasn't need. Because if you think about it, you could lock a human inside a mansion but if that mansion is completely empty minus a singular chair or a worn down bed, the amount of space simply isn't important. And that's what I felt whilst reading this book.
I actually took out the entire day to read this. It's not a long book and there are very little words (very little needs to be said) but I wanted to truly take in every single inch of each individual picture. And something I found was that the longer I stared, the worse each picture became. The more horrifying details I noticed. The more insulting and degrading and pitiful it became to every animal that Jo-Anne had born witness to.
I adored Jo-Anne's challenge to spend a day at the zoo. She is absolutely right. As customers, we spend 10 minutes tops at each cage before moving on to the next, leaving within 3-5 hours at most. But the idea of actually, truly, being there... counting the amount of pacing, watching the stereotypys... it's just so important to bear witness and I truly applaud her for encouraging everyone to do the same. We can learn so much when we empathise, when we remove ourselves from the position of "consumer" and place ourselves on the other side of the cage. This is something we should all be doing.
On a much more positive note, I'd like to say how much hope this book gave me. Jo-Anne is right, when she talks about the atrocity of the fact that this is still in existence in 2017. But it's also incredible to hear about some of the more positive aspects that she spoke about, such as Detroit Zoo's CEO and the steps that he's taking. I applaud any zoo or aquarium that can hold its hands up, admit its wrong then strive to make a positive change.
If this book has taught me anything at all, it's that there really is absolutely no education at zoos, aquariums or marine parks. There truly is nothing to be learnt from observing these beings in an unnatural environment. Except, of course, that they shouldn't be there.
The only education I've received from visiting zoos are that animals don't belong in them.
This had a very different feel to We Animals, though. This had a real feeling of desperation, urgency, loneliness, humiliation, objectification, melancholy and above all, exploitation.
In my pre vegan days, I was a voluntary assistant zoo keeper. I was never forced to confront the darker side of captivity because I believe this is hidden from just about everybody, including many staff members themselves.
But this book forced me to think back over my zoo days and, essentially, gave me terrible flashbacks. I remember lions pacing the same fence perimeters for hours and hours on end, until they'd eventually eat, then return to pacing. I remember the bats, all huddled together in a room beaming with daylight despite them being nocturnal. I remember the alligator who I never saw move a single muscle in the entire 6 months I volunteered there. In short, this truly forced me to confront some of my own demons but also drove me to want to do more to help the current prisoners.
I truly believe that anthropomorphism is something essential when observing animals in a captive setting. I understand that it is heavily frowned upon, but to me, it's a huge part of being an empathetic human being and I was glad that I could look at each individual picture whilst putting myself in place of the animal.
What shocked me most about this book was how boring everything was. Every single cage looked barren and bare, like some sort of wasteland or even a post apocalyptic war zone. There was so much concrete. So much repetition. Exactly like a prison.
In fact, many pictures reminded me of old photos from World War II of concentration camps. Some put me in mind of supposedly haunted abandoned buildings. A couple actually reminded me of factory farms that I've visited myself. But for some reason, the ones that upset me the most were the industrial looking ones. The ones where you could see roads and shops in the background. Those, to me, were the ultimate insult. To put such majestic wild creatures amidst such human chaos is barbaric and something that I can only hope we look back upon in horror some day.
Everything was shockingly artificial. It made me sick to see images of animals laying on hard concrete slabs in indoor warehouses whilst their walls were painted with wild jungles or Arctic tundras. Jo-Anne was right- it really is all for we animals and nothing about these places truly mimicked their natural habitats. It was all an illusion. A distraction for the consumer. I say "consumer" because that's what we are. We're just consumers in a capitalist society, feeding the CEOs at the top whilst buying their food, their plush zoo animals and gawking at inmates.
Jo-Anne's words truly resonated with me and moved me to tears on more than one occasion. The way she spoke about the animals that paced really did break me in two. It put me in mind of my own rescued cat. When we first took him in, he was too young to go outside alone so we made the-very wrong- decision to keep him indoors. What ensued was a slow descent into madness. Continual pacing. Crying. Frustration. Strange, stereotypys as a result of the mental torment he was suffering. Suffice to say, we granted him his freedom very soon after this, but he was lucky. These animals won't be granted their freedom. They'll have to live how my own cat lived for the rest of their painful lives. And that truly hurts to even begin to contemplate.
What was amazing to me is seeing everyone around these animals. It's so degrading watching families taking selfies with desperately unhappy animals, but this is the generation we're living in. We don't even stop to think about how embarrassing this is. How desperate these animals must feel when they reach their hands through the bars, longing for something new, something more. How alone these animals must feel, particularly ones who are in groups constructed by humans or even animals who live completely alone. And of course, how objectifying it all is. Once upon a time, disfigured humans were captured and enslaved for circuses and freak shows, and we gawked at them in awe and amazement. We are doing the exact same thing now, and it's an abomination. Just desperately pitiful.
When humans are abducted by fellow humans, we always hear the horror stories about how they were locked in cellars, garages, warehouses or sometimes even boxes. Always barren, confined spaces where they are forced into submission, their control completely removed and are almost thrown into autopilot where their routine is constant, never changing. What we are doing to animals in zoos and aquaria put me in mind of this and made my stomach churn. Humans who are lucky enough to survive such ordeals can share their stories and experience freedom. Animals are unable to speak a human language, unable to tell us that they're bored, hungry, lonely or frightened.
What amazed me whilst looking through this book is that space became irrelevant. When I first made the purchase, I half expected this book to be full of such cramped conditions that the animals would be unable to even turn around. But oddly enough, space wasn't even something I was particularly noticing. There simply wasn't need. Because if you think about it, you could lock a human inside a mansion but if that mansion is completely empty minus a singular chair or a worn down bed, the amount of space simply isn't important. And that's what I felt whilst reading this book.
I actually took out the entire day to read this. It's not a long book and there are very little words (very little needs to be said) but I wanted to truly take in every single inch of each individual picture. And something I found was that the longer I stared, the worse each picture became. The more horrifying details I noticed. The more insulting and degrading and pitiful it became to every animal that Jo-Anne had born witness to.
I adored Jo-Anne's challenge to spend a day at the zoo. She is absolutely right. As customers, we spend 10 minutes tops at each cage before moving on to the next, leaving within 3-5 hours at most. But the idea of actually, truly, being there... counting the amount of pacing, watching the stereotypys... it's just so important to bear witness and I truly applaud her for encouraging everyone to do the same. We can learn so much when we empathise, when we remove ourselves from the position of "consumer" and place ourselves on the other side of the cage. This is something we should all be doing.
On a much more positive note, I'd like to say how much hope this book gave me. Jo-Anne is right, when she talks about the atrocity of the fact that this is still in existence in 2017. But it's also incredible to hear about some of the more positive aspects that she spoke about, such as Detroit Zoo's CEO and the steps that he's taking. I applaud any zoo or aquarium that can hold its hands up, admit its wrong then strive to make a positive change.
If this book has taught me anything at all, it's that there really is absolutely no education at zoos, aquariums or marine parks. There truly is nothing to be learnt from observing these beings in an unnatural environment. Except, of course, that they shouldn't be there.
The only education I've received from visiting zoos are that animals don't belong in them.
May 18, 2017
I'm the publisher of this book, and I thought I'd offer a few thoughts on its publication. I published WE ANIMALS (now available in paperback with 16 pages of new photographs) and was blown away by the emotional punch, compositional skill, and terrible beauty of Jo's photos of animals in the human environment. CAPTIVE, which was a labor of love for all concerned, requiring almost a year of intensive work from concept to delivery, is a breathtaking and deeply caring examination of animals in zoos and aquaria around the world. Instructively, many of the zoos where Jo took her photographs are in countries that can afford to make their zoos much richer environments for the animals. Also instructively, many of Jo's photos capture we humans separating ourselves from the animals not merely through bars but through digital media or by literally turning our backs on them. As always, Jo's photographs make you think; wonder at the beauty of these animals; weep for the boredom and frustration of their confinement; infuriate you at our indifference, casual cruelty, and ignorance; and dedicate yourself to making sure that future generations of human and nonhuman animals will no longer have to endure these situations.
August 15, 2017
Although I may not agree with the author's views or agenda, I nevertheless believe that it is incumbent upon me to read the writings of those with whom I disagree and try to understand and comprehend them and even learn from them. Therefore, I started this book with an open mind. However, the bias of the author and the grimness with which she painted zoos and aquaria through her words and photos left me flabbergasted having not only visited some of the same institutions that the author so hardily condemns, but having spent time observing the animals in, and even the visitors to these zoos.
It is clear that the photographs are framed to show the negative rather than both negative and positive aspects of these institutions. Yes, there are zoos that could do better and improve the animals habitats. However, there are others, which include some that are depicted in the photos in this collection that do a wonderful job and whose exhibitry is not as barren or cruel as the author would have one think based upon the pictures.
I will add that there are also sanctuaries and rescues that the author advocates are a better choice for animals in captivity that are more barren and have worse habitats than the zoos depicted in these photos. However, it is unfortunate for the reader that the author choses not to present pictures of the animals that were rescued and are placed in these appalling situations.
Therefore, I would not recommend this book to any reader who wants to approach zoos with an open mind and learn about both the positive and negative aspects of them, and what can and should be done to improve the lives of animals in captivity.
It is clear that the photographs are framed to show the negative rather than both negative and positive aspects of these institutions. Yes, there are zoos that could do better and improve the animals habitats. However, there are others, which include some that are depicted in the photos in this collection that do a wonderful job and whose exhibitry is not as barren or cruel as the author would have one think based upon the pictures.
I will add that there are also sanctuaries and rescues that the author advocates are a better choice for animals in captivity that are more barren and have worse habitats than the zoos depicted in these photos. However, it is unfortunate for the reader that the author choses not to present pictures of the animals that were rescued and are placed in these appalling situations.
Therefore, I would not recommend this book to any reader who wants to approach zoos with an open mind and learn about both the positive and negative aspects of them, and what can and should be done to improve the lives of animals in captivity.
August 29, 2017
A powerful collection of photos that show the lives of animals kept captive in zoos and aquaria.
Pairs well with: We Animals, by Jo-Anne McArthur, images of animals in labs, slaughterhouses, fur farms and zoos.
Quotable:
"It can be unbearable to watch an animal circling, or simply doing nothing, for a few minutes. I challenge you to stay with that animal all day and not leave sensitized to the depravity of captivity. Imagine living for twenty, fifty or even seventy years in a cage. No arguments for conservation or education are worth this sacrifice."
"I want people to see captivity through an empathic lens, as well as from the point of view and perspective of the captives.""
"Like all animals we wish for autonomy. We wish to be with our own and to explore our world. We flee from harm and we seek shelter. We desire to build our lives and make our own way. We hate forced confinement and we succumb to despair if we have no prospect of freedom...And of this I am certain: places of exploitation, domination and objectification have no place in an enlightened society. They can become sanctuaries, wildlife centres and places for compassionate conservation. It's time for us to be courageous and build a relationship between we animals and those animals based on respect and care. It's time to evolve and leave captivity behind."
Pairs well with: We Animals, by Jo-Anne McArthur, images of animals in labs, slaughterhouses, fur farms and zoos.
Quotable:
"It can be unbearable to watch an animal circling, or simply doing nothing, for a few minutes. I challenge you to stay with that animal all day and not leave sensitized to the depravity of captivity. Imagine living for twenty, fifty or even seventy years in a cage. No arguments for conservation or education are worth this sacrifice."
"I want people to see captivity through an empathic lens, as well as from the point of view and perspective of the captives.""
"Like all animals we wish for autonomy. We wish to be with our own and to explore our world. We flee from harm and we seek shelter. We desire to build our lives and make our own way. We hate forced confinement and we succumb to despair if we have no prospect of freedom...And of this I am certain: places of exploitation, domination and objectification have no place in an enlightened society. They can become sanctuaries, wildlife centres and places for compassionate conservation. It's time for us to be courageous and build a relationship between we animals and those animals based on respect and care. It's time to evolve and leave captivity behind."
May 3, 2021
This book shook me to my core and I will never look at zoos or aquariums the same again! The images are truly haunting and the written portions are emotionally stirring as well, so be prepared with a box of tissues before beginning this journey. However, please be brave enough to take it because it will definitely change you in a way that is for the better.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews