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Hidden: Animals in the Anthropocene
This book is published by We Animals Media and distributed by Lantern Publishing & Media.
A collection of stunning images from some of the world’s leading photographers of animals in the human environment.
Animals in the Anthropocene is an unflinching book of photography about our conflict with non-human animals around the globe. Through the lenses of thirty award-winning photojournalists, HIDDEN shines a light on the invisible animals in our those with whom we have a close relationship and yet fail to see. The animals we eat and wear; the animals we use for research, work, and for entertainment; the animals we sacrifice in the name of tradition and religion. HIDDEN is a historical document, a memorial, and an indictment of what is and should never again be.
Showcased by award-winning designer David Griffin, HIDDEN represents the work of over thirty photojournalists who have documented—and continue to document—animal stories. Their exhaustive and in-depth work has resulted in some of the most compelling and historic images of animals ever seen. Among them are (in alphabetical order): Aaron Gekoski, Aitor Garmendia, Amy Jones, Andrew Skowron, Britta Jaschinski, Daniel Beltrá, Francesco Pistilli, Joan de la Malla, Jo-Anne McArthur, Jose Valle, Kelly Guerin, Kristo Muurimaa, Konrad Lozinski, Louise Jorgensen, Luis Tato, Paul Hilton, Sabine Grootendorst, Selene Magnolia, Stefano Belacchi, Tamara Kenneally, and Timo Stammberger.
“The photojournalists featured in Hidden have entered some of the darkest, most unsettling places in the world. The images they have captured are a searing reminder of our unpardonable behavior towards animals and will serve as beacons of change for years to come.”— Joaquin Phoenix , actor
“I am, quite simply, in awe of these photographers. In a way, they are like war photographers, except witness to a war that so many people choose to suppress that exists. This takes enormous inner strength and bloody-minded determination, because they cannot save any of the animals that they photograph; they can only hope that their photos will help illuminate the mass extermination that unfolds every second of every day across the planet. To me, they are heroes. Not just for one day, but over and over and over again.”— Nick Brandt , photographer
A collection of stunning images from some of the world’s leading photographers of animals in the human environment.
Animals in the Anthropocene is an unflinching book of photography about our conflict with non-human animals around the globe. Through the lenses of thirty award-winning photojournalists, HIDDEN shines a light on the invisible animals in our those with whom we have a close relationship and yet fail to see. The animals we eat and wear; the animals we use for research, work, and for entertainment; the animals we sacrifice in the name of tradition and religion. HIDDEN is a historical document, a memorial, and an indictment of what is and should never again be.
Showcased by award-winning designer David Griffin, HIDDEN represents the work of over thirty photojournalists who have documented—and continue to document—animal stories. Their exhaustive and in-depth work has resulted in some of the most compelling and historic images of animals ever seen. Among them are (in alphabetical order): Aaron Gekoski, Aitor Garmendia, Amy Jones, Andrew Skowron, Britta Jaschinski, Daniel Beltrá, Francesco Pistilli, Joan de la Malla, Jo-Anne McArthur, Jose Valle, Kelly Guerin, Kristo Muurimaa, Konrad Lozinski, Louise Jorgensen, Luis Tato, Paul Hilton, Sabine Grootendorst, Selene Magnolia, Stefano Belacchi, Tamara Kenneally, and Timo Stammberger.
“The photojournalists featured in Hidden have entered some of the darkest, most unsettling places in the world. The images they have captured are a searing reminder of our unpardonable behavior towards animals and will serve as beacons of change for years to come.”— Joaquin Phoenix , actor
“I am, quite simply, in awe of these photographers. In a way, they are like war photographers, except witness to a war that so many people choose to suppress that exists. This takes enormous inner strength and bloody-minded determination, because they cannot save any of the animals that they photograph; they can only hope that their photos will help illuminate the mass extermination that unfolds every second of every day across the planet. To me, they are heroes. Not just for one day, but over and over and over again.”— Nick Brandt , photographer
304 pages, Hardcover
Published December 7, 2020
2 people are currently reading
206 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 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 4, 2022
Everyone should read this book - whether you eat animals or not, whether you like animals, or pets, or dislike them all, whether you are vegan or not. It is important to see what the world we have created looks like for those we share it with. Although, now that I say it... "share" implies equality. What we do is essentially the opposite.
If a picture speaks a thousand words - this book speaks literal billions*. For all the animals we harm, kill, eat, torture, wear, displace, experiment on, exploit, hunt, trap, use for entertainment, and abuse. For all the animals we artificially inseminate, bury alive. For all the mama animals who never get to do what every mammal is biologically designed to do - help keep its young safe and alive. Did you know that mammals, just like humans - also mammals - only give milk after giving birth? All the dairy consumed by humans represents all the babies who were deprived and then introduced to animal agriculture to perpetuate the cycle of dairy cows, veal, beef, and leather.
*22.5 billion is the number of combined total chickens, cows, pigs, and sheep living at any one time on the world's farms. 160 million farmed animals are transported to slaughterhouses every day.
While this book was absolutely heart breaking, I admit it was a bit easier to go through this book thinking "thank God I don't participate in eating or wearing animals" but the final paragraph in the final essay in the book really put me in my place:
"Those of us who want to stop this have our own euphemisms, of course: veganism, animal rights, sustainability - even that most comforting of empty gestures, compassion. But in our hearts, we know we are complicit. Our presence on this planet limits the wellbeing of millions of other species; any lifestyle consumes resources that could be used by other animals, and readers of this book are likely to have larger food-prints than many of the people** you see in HIDDEN. That's not to say we shouldn't do more; we should. After reading this book, it would be impossible to do less."
** slaughterhouse workers, wet market sellers, factory farm workers, hunters, etc.
This was such a strong way to end the book. Anyone looking through the photos of people shown can think, "I mean... I'd never unnecessarily ABUSE an animal even if I worked at a slaughterhouse." It is easy to pass judgment on the people in this book. But at the end of the day... they probably DO have less wasteful lives than people living in the western world. Simply being vegan is not enough, and I am grateful for the message of this book. I will never NOT be vegan, but I WILL work to be increasingly mindful of how I use the world's resources which are not mine to use in the first place. We can always do more when it comes to minimizing the suffering of living beings. Sometimes that comes about by just doing less. Eat less meat (i.e. eat fewer animals), buy fewer products that have been tested on animals, waste less, buy new things less, etc.
This book is comprised primarily of photographs. There are descriptions for each photograph included as well as location and photographer credit. There are also a few short essays throughout. The foreword is written by sweet baby man Joaquin Phoenix. It's an incredibly accessible read but I will warn that it is difficult to get through. That should not deter anyone. Turning a blind eye to the atrocities of the world does not make those atrocities go away; it only makes us complicit in them. Also, I'd highly recommend reading this book alongside Tender is the Flesh
If a picture speaks a thousand words - this book speaks literal billions*. For all the animals we harm, kill, eat, torture, wear, displace, experiment on, exploit, hunt, trap, use for entertainment, and abuse. For all the animals we artificially inseminate, bury alive. For all the mama animals who never get to do what every mammal is biologically designed to do - help keep its young safe and alive. Did you know that mammals, just like humans - also mammals - only give milk after giving birth? All the dairy consumed by humans represents all the babies who were deprived and then introduced to animal agriculture to perpetuate the cycle of dairy cows, veal, beef, and leather.
*22.5 billion is the number of combined total chickens, cows, pigs, and sheep living at any one time on the world's farms. 160 million farmed animals are transported to slaughterhouses every day.
While this book was absolutely heart breaking, I admit it was a bit easier to go through this book thinking "thank God I don't participate in eating or wearing animals" but the final paragraph in the final essay in the book really put me in my place:
"Those of us who want to stop this have our own euphemisms, of course: veganism, animal rights, sustainability - even that most comforting of empty gestures, compassion. But in our hearts, we know we are complicit. Our presence on this planet limits the wellbeing of millions of other species; any lifestyle consumes resources that could be used by other animals, and readers of this book are likely to have larger food-prints than many of the people** you see in HIDDEN. That's not to say we shouldn't do more; we should. After reading this book, it would be impossible to do less."
** slaughterhouse workers, wet market sellers, factory farm workers, hunters, etc.
This was such a strong way to end the book. Anyone looking through the photos of people shown can think, "I mean... I'd never unnecessarily ABUSE an animal even if I worked at a slaughterhouse." It is easy to pass judgment on the people in this book. But at the end of the day... they probably DO have less wasteful lives than people living in the western world. Simply being vegan is not enough, and I am grateful for the message of this book. I will never NOT be vegan, but I WILL work to be increasingly mindful of how I use the world's resources which are not mine to use in the first place. We can always do more when it comes to minimizing the suffering of living beings. Sometimes that comes about by just doing less. Eat less meat (i.e. eat fewer animals), buy fewer products that have been tested on animals, waste less, buy new things less, etc.
This book is comprised primarily of photographs. There are descriptions for each photograph included as well as location and photographer credit. There are also a few short essays throughout. The foreword is written by sweet baby man Joaquin Phoenix. It's an incredibly accessible read but I will warn that it is difficult to get through. That should not deter anyone. Turning a blind eye to the atrocities of the world does not make those atrocities go away; it only makes us complicit in them. Also, I'd highly recommend reading this book alongside Tender is the Flesh
March 20, 2021
Sometimes, pictures say more than 1000 words... and in the case of this book pictures say more than 2034342394723423040248242 words.
Shocking, brutal, inhumane. The book is a collection of pictures by many photographers who , like war photographers, took pictures of the life and suffering of animals.
Not animals in nature, but animals who get exploited by humans on a daily basis, on factory farms, for flesh, clothes. Including chapters on dog meat, lab tests etc. The results are not pretty.
The pictures also show the place where they were taken and guess what.. theyre not all in China or Mexico ("where they torture the animals"). Many of them are also from France, Italy and... The Netherlands.
5/5, many of these pictures should get prices imo.
Shocking, brutal, inhumane. The book is a collection of pictures by many photographers who , like war photographers, took pictures of the life and suffering of animals.
Not animals in nature, but animals who get exploited by humans on a daily basis, on factory farms, for flesh, clothes. Including chapters on dog meat, lab tests etc. The results are not pretty.
The pictures also show the place where they were taken and guess what.. theyre not all in China or Mexico ("where they torture the animals"). Many of them are also from France, Italy and... The Netherlands.
5/5, many of these pictures should get prices imo.
September 28, 2021
"The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men"
Powerful words, even more powerful images. It is mind boggling what is being done to animals in all corners of the earth. I'm shocked and heartbroken. I'm going to circle this book around among my friends and relatives..
Powerful words, even more powerful images. It is mind boggling what is being done to animals in all corners of the earth. I'm shocked and heartbroken. I'm going to circle this book around among my friends and relatives..
August 23, 2021
I'm the distributor of this book, and I'm also a contributor; I've published two other books by Jo-Anne, and co-wrote and published another. So, I'm pretty damn familiar with Jo-Anne McArthur's work. Nonetheless, it never ceases to amaze me how she can keep on taking profoundly disturbing and shocking photos of animals in the human environment while retaining a compassionate and forgiving eye that compels us to look and to seek to understand how it is that *we* animals can continue to do such things to *those* animals. HIDDEN is a handsomely mounted compendium of images from more than forty photographers that is—without doubt—very tough, although profoundly necessary, viewing. (There are many mini-essays throughout the book, including mine, on euphemisms.) The book has been beautifully printed (in Italy) and the paper absorbs and intensifies the colors, shadows, and contrasts. HIDDEN is, perhaps, the most unlikely book to end up on a coffee-table, and yet it holds together, due to excellent organization and design and the astonishing photography. All in all, HIDDEN is one of those marquee productions that we publishers like to be associated with—mainly because the weight of the subject (in every sense of the term) justifies its presence as an object. In short, it's what we're in this business for.
September 19, 2022
Thought provoking, disturbing, realistic, emotional. The photos of Hidden stay with you, the words can penetrate your heart. I have this book permanently on my coffee table. Some people wonder why I have a book with disturbing photos of how animals are treated sit so prominently in my home. It is to remind us to do better. Do better in our choices that involve animals, do better in our view of animals, do better in our treatment of animals. Our world does a good job of keeping the treatment of animals hidden from us. Keeping the animals hidden is the primary way that abuse can flourish. Look at the photos, read the pages and let's change things. Thank you Jo-Anne McArthur and thank you to all the photo journalists that contributed.
October 15, 2022
So painful! So true! So amazingly done!
July 15, 2024
Verge santíssima què hem fet
December 27, 2025
Exquisitely documented photojournalism but god damn is it tough to sift through.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews