elene Magnolia is an Italian
documentary photographer
with a background in
grassroots activism. Her
work takes in anthropology,
feminism, human rights,
the environment and food production.
Raised in Italy, Selene studied at
the British Academy of Photography.
Based in Berlin and London, Selene is
one of the photographers to contribute
images to a new book, Hidden: Animals
in the Anthropocene, which will also run
as an exhibition in Berlin until April.What do you think of the new book?
I got slightly emotional when I saw it.
It’s great! The size, the editing, how the
pictures have been selected and put
next to each other, the design, the
paper and the quality – every single
choice to me is perfect. I am in love
with it, and I’m obsessed with it. How
can a human being look at this and not
reconsider their relationship to animals?When did you first get interested
in animal photojournalism?
I started getting involved with animal
rights groups when I was 20; after a
couple of years, I started seeing factory
farms. When I witnessed animal abuse
directly, it came very naturally for me
to think, “I want more people to see it.How do you do that? Well, you can take
photos.” Then there was a major event
that made me want to focus on this a
lot more, and that was when I witnessed
a particular kind of slaughter that
shocked me completely.What type of slaughter?
It was on the Faroe Islands and I
witnessed the whale slaughter, the
Grindaráp, known as ‘the grind’. It’s
really shocking to see how the people
take part – not just observe it, but
how much they truly enjoy it.A lot of your work is undercover,
and you enter factory farms and
fur farms at night. What was it
like the first time?
The first time is stuck in my head and
is an experience you don’t forget. It
was five or six years ago, at a pig
farm in Italy, which makes it creepy
because pigs scream so much.
I remember feeling scared: it’s dark,
it’s cold, there’s no-one around, and you
want to keep an ear out to hear anything
worrying, but you can’t because the
pigs are screaming so much. When we
were outside it sounded so much like
human voices. It was completely
shocking and traumatising because
they were screaming – which of
course doesn’t make pig sufferingany different from any other animal,
but from a human perspective, it’s
just a lot more relatable.
Inside it felt like a horror movie.
I remember opening the door, hearing
the screaming getting louder, smelling
the air; it was awful. I remember dead
piglets lying around in this barn.
I remember the eyes of the mothers,
because there was a section where
the mothers were giving birth in these
crates where they can’t move. It was
like a horror movie, with everything you
have in a horror movie: fear from my
side, dead bodies, terror in individual
faces and eyes, the pigs unable to
move, the bad smell, the lights buzzing
all the time. It was absolutely disturbing.Back then, there was little appetite
by the media to carry these sorts
of images. What positive changes
have you seen since?
Five or six years ago I remember people
saying, “This is an important topic,
but these pictures are too disturbing,
they’re too graphic; nobody will want
to publish that.” To some extent it is
still like that, but in recent years I’ve
seen this kind of material in major
magazines and newspapers.
It’s also extraordinary that the
Covid-19 pandemic and its links to
animal farming, markets and slaughterSELENE MAGNOLIA
Documentary photographer
and animal rights activist
seleneenamagnolia.com
Behind
the lens
S
Selene Magnolia108 DIGITAL CAMERA^ MARCH 2021 http://www.digitalcameraworld.com