A haven or a prison?
Over the last five years I've spent a lot of time at wildlife sanctuaries of various descriptions, often visiting expressly to photograph an animal I don't have the ability to get close to in the wild.
This was a big departure for me. As a kid (and adult) I've certainly been to many zoos (good and bad) and enjoyed lots of time with my family seeing animals in captivity and in the wild. Some of my most formative memories involve seeing sea life in rockpools, spotting koalas in the trees and visiting various zoos around the place.
I had a turning point in 2015. My brother and I were in Berlin and the zoo there, for some reason, was something we'd heard about - perhaps famous or well known for some reason. As we walked through we got to the big cats and a leopard tirelessly pacing its enclosure. This tiny space - maybe as large as my kitchen - was a concrete cube with some risers and some taped on foilage. Seeing that, I don't know, it broke my heart. This animal should have acres to roam, here it had centimeters.
But, as an artist I've wanted to get closer to animals in ways that are impossible in the wild. For The Killing Sink, it was a bit of a revelation that, instead of trying to get close to a bird 50-1000m in the sky, I could visit a wildlife keeper and get within 2 meters. A lot of my work is about collapsing distance and finding a scale that feels very intimate, almost claustrophobic. I want the texture of the feathers to be almost physical in the photograph, the heft and imposition of a real animal to feel visceral. That's just not something I was getting when I photographed the birds in the wild, simply because they were far away and didn't want much to do with me.
My newer work - Corner Country - is about the exclusion of dingoes from about 1/3-1/2 of Australia. Once again, I find myself relying on wildlife sanctuaries to get close to the very animal I'm thinking a lot about. Funnily enough, a friend of mine recently told me he didn't think dingoes were real (to be fair, he doesn't live in Australia) - so for my international friends, dingoes are like Australia's wolves, and more or less persecuted for the same reason (they prey on farm animals). I've now spent two weekends at two different sanctuaries photographing dingoes, and four days with them is, I'm confident, more than just about anyone in Australia. There are now probably only like 2000 people in Australia who have sat with dingoes longer than I have. Low bar.
Last weekend I was just left in the pen with the dingoes for hours at a time and, after the dingoes went a bit feral they then got bored of me and I just had a lot of time to think. Being in a pen with dingoes is interesting - they are large, and energetic and can be dangerous - but largely the ones that I'm allowed to spend time with are comfortable enough with humans that they don't seem to mind - still they would happily have torn my jacket to shreds and fought with me if I played rough.
Anyway, sanctuaries are a both bit sad and a bit joyful. Animals, who would take up lots of territory in the wild are fenced in to smaller areas, and live out their days in comfort and with lots of love and appreciation, but in a much smaller and simpler version of living. These animals aren't caged by the sanctuary, but arrive already caged - perhaps surrendered pets, illegally kept animals, or animals injured to the point they cannot be returned to the wild (they would die). Eagles, for example, can rarely heal a broken wing well enough to hunt. So these animals at the sanctuary are really facing two choices: a home in a zoo (albeit a very nice zoo run by sweet people) or death.
I think that's what bothers me a bit - that lack of agency. After all it's a question that no one has a definitive answer for: a life well lived (even if it's short) or something longer but less free. Is the point of life to have a good time or a long time? That's a choice we each inevitably make (within our bounds), but that's a choice humans have removed from these animals. As I find myself getting closer and reflecting a lot about why I care and what I am learning, I can't help but grieve that there are no longer any good options for these creatures, just shades of less bad.
But maybe this is indulgent and silly. On the weekend, I was one of many visitors - most who were seeing dingoes for the first time. Many of them children who got to interact with an animal whose wellbeing as a species they inherit. Like it or not, what happens to dingoes is up to us as Australians and in seeing almost everyone who came through feeling awestruck and impressed is perhaps for the greater good. Two square meals a day, a lot of stimulation and interaction and a small population of advocates - perhaps that isn't so bad. After all, without those interactions how can we combat the narratives that demonise these animals and seek to exterminate them?
South Australia - for example - is seeking to eliminate their ENTIRE dingo population 'inside of the fence' (so about 2/3 of South Australia's land area). It's galling to me that in 2023 we've not learned that extermination is a tragedy that is rued and grievous. So maybe, then, these sanctuaries provide an experiential learning opportunity to see an animal as something alive, present, real and valuable in of itself.
But, still, that seems too simple, too easy, too slick. Dingoes are dogs, but they are not pets. When people interact with them at these sanctuaries, myself included, we are more or less treating them as pets - patting, playing, talking to them like we talk to our own dogs. And they more or less act as pets - as rambunctious working dogs. Would people love them as much if we'd just observed them hunting and ripping apart their dinner? Or if we had to run from them? I don't think so.
Yet ultimately, as an artist, advocate and human, this is what matters most to me: how can we respect something that we may fear? How can we respect something on its own terms - not as a cutesy puppy, or an anthropomorphised disney version, but as the real, wild, ravenous, intense thing that it is? How do I advocate for us putting ourselves second and leaving room for other predators to be predatory? Because I think that matters, I think we should be mature enough to recognise that a dingo should hunt, an eagle should kill, a shark should tear - these are important and vital parts of this animal, they are vital an important parts of the ecology, and that predation is intimidating, but it's essential. This is a part of our world - a necessary part of it - I don't gleefully seek the violence, but I don't want to have to ignore it to value these creatures.
When you go to a sanctuary you see none of that. The violence and wildness of the animals has been sapped out - not by the sanctuaries specifically, but by the whole process of acclimatising humans to animals. Eagles resist this more than dingoes - birds aren't mammalian after all - but still, try patting an eagle in the wild - you never, ever will.
I guess, like most things, what a sanctuary represents is someone's attempt at a balance - it's a person's effort in finding ways to be a steward and a carer. I ultimately find that an easy position to relate to and an impulse I admire. Like me, I think those that run sanctuaries have a hard time reconciling the fact that they want the animals free, but know that's unrealistic. Like us all, they too have aspirations beyond their ability to shift.
When I first make contact with a new sanctuary, animal keeper or advocate, the very first thing I make clear is that as a photographer the animals' wellbeing comes first. No flash, no pointing things in their faces, no posing, nothing forced or controlled. Just time, openness, space and letting the animals lead me.
That is what gets me a 'yes' and allows me backstage access. I think that's a good place to end because regardless of whether sanctuaries are the best of a bad situation (I think they are) or just a cage parading as charity (which is a terrible thing to think, in my view) every single animal keeper would only let me get close after they were certain I'd care and respect the animals as much as they would. That's a high bar, I think, and reassures me a lot.