jo-anne mcarthur

Claudia talks to renowned photographer Jo-Anne McArthur about the power of images in political change for animals. They unpack what animal photojournalism is, some of the challenges photographers encounter in recording the lives of animals, and the political implications of such photos. 

Date Recorded: 17 October 2023. 

Jo-Anne McArthur is an award-winning photojournalist, sought-after speaker, photo editor, and the founder of We Animals Media. She has visited over sixty countries to document our complex relationship with animals. She is the author of three books: We Animals (2014), Captive (2017), and HIDDEN: Animals in the Anthropocene (2020), and is the subject of Canadian filmmaker Liz Marshall’s acclaimed Canadian documentary, The Ghosts in Our Machine. Jo-Anne’s photographs have received accolades from Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Nature Photographer of the Year, Big Picture, Picture of the Year International, the Global Peace Award, and others. Jo-Anne has been a visiting scholar at the University of British Columbia and Denver University, and in 2020, Jo-Anne was a jury member for World Press Photo. She hails from Toronto, Canada. Find out more about Jo-Anne on her website or connect with her on Twitter (@WeAnimals). 

Featured: 

• Hidden, Animals in the Anthropocene by We Animals Media
• It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War by Lindsey Addario                                
• Every Twelve seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight by Timothy Pachirat. 
• Maximum tolerated dose by Decipher Films
• Zebra Eye by Frans Lanting
• Jo-Anne’s striking images of minks.
• We Animals Media
• Aaron Gekoski 
• 
  

The Animal Turn is part of the  iROAR, an Animals Podcasting Network and can also be found on A.P.P.L.E, Twitter, and Instagram

Thank you to Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics (A.P.P.L.E) for sponsoring this podcast; Gordon Clarke (Instagram: @_con_sol_) for the bed music, Jeremy John for the logo, Rebecca Shen for her design work, Virginia Thomas for the Animal Highlight, and Christiaan Mentz for his audio editing. This epis

The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of iROAR Network. Find out more on our website.

Jo-Anne McArthur is a multiple award winning photojournalist who has spent over two decades travelling the world to document and bring to light the disturbing truth about our relationship with the other sentient beings that share our planet. Her unflinching photography has been acknowledged with multiple awards including Wildlife Photographer of the Year and The Global Peace Award.

She is the author of  three books: We Animals (2014), Captive (2017), and HIDDEN: Animals in the Anthropocene (2020), and is the subject of Canadian filmmaker Liz Marshall's acclaimed Canadian documentary, The Ghosts in Our Machine.

Jo-Anne is founder of  We Animals Media, an organisation dedicated to bringing visibility to 'hidden' animals through compelling photo and videojournalism.  The comprehensive archive of work depicting the animals we trap, wear, eat, and experiment on is freely available  to anyone wishing to change the status-quo and work towards a more compassionate world where we co-exist peacefully alongside animals.

Jo-Anne and WAM's dedicated team of journalists regularly put themselves in compromising and dangerous situations in the hopes of inspiring others to share their want of a better world for animals. They often have to break the law to obtain the stories they believe will shift our attitudes towards the 80 billion land animals we use and kill every year. 

In this episode of Talking Apes, Jo-Anne opens up about suffering PTSD as a result of the cruelty and bloodshed she has witnessed throughout her career. She tells us about the time her entire team ended up in hospital, and explains how she maintains her incredibly positive and warm demeaner despite the dark worlds she documents. 


READ OUR BLOG HERE to learn more and see some of Jo-Anne's work, including the photos discussed in the podcast. 





Visit Jo-Anne McArthur's Website

Warning: discusses animal cruelty, animal suffering, animal abuse.

Themes: animal rights, animal liberation, animal welfare, vegetarianism, veganism, animal law, animal protection, cruelty free living,  journalism, photography.

GLOBIO is a global awareness nonprofit that creates environmental films and provides visual support to wildlife conservation organizations around the world, and tells their stories globally while educating the public about our shared environmental challenges. GLOBIO’s mission is to inspire a positive relationship with our environment by connecting species, people and planet.

Talking Apes is an initiative of the nonprofit GLOBIO.
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