Untitled, from Of One and The Other (2013-2018)
JAYANTI SEILER captures the emotional complexity of relationships between humans and animals in photographic essays that explore a range of spaces where they interact. She has spent time with owners of exotic big cats, taxidermists, falconers and young people in the 4-H Club, who raise animals to be brought to Livestock auctions at the Volusia County Fair. She photographs at sanctuaries that care for abused wild and domestic animals, traveling safaris, zoos, and wildlife rescue and rehabilitation centers. Her poignant images reveal contradictory truths that can't be easily reconciled; caretaking and love often cross paths with exploitation and death. Jayanti earned her MFA at the University of Florida and her BFA in Photography at the Rhode Island School of Design. Her photographs have been published in numerous magazines, including The New York Times LENS, LIFE FORCE (UK), LENSCRATCH, Véganes contreculturel (Canada), Vision (Beijing), Edge of Humanity, Muybridge’s Horse, Bird In Flight (Russia). Her work has been exhibited at the Southeast Museum of Photography (Florida), Chiang Mai University Art Museum (Thailand), Harvard University, Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia, and Washington State University. In 2018, she released a first edition fine art book of her series titled Of One and The Other, capturing the complexity of human-animal relationships. Jayanti lives in Deland, Florida, where she is an Associate Professor at the Daytona State College Southeast Center for Photographic Studies.
OtherPeoplePixels: Vulnerability seems to be the thread tying all your work together, but your photographs don’t feel exploitative. How do you cultivate the empathetic gaze?
Jayanti Seiler: I aim to build a relationship of trust between my subjects and myself. I am transparent with my subjects about why I am photographing them. With the human-animal work, I made the conscious decision to set some of my beliefs aside and acknowledge that each person I met does love animals in some way and that this love manifests differently along the spectrum. I remained open to the opinions about animals and the justifications that support them. My commitment to approach my subjects without judgment and listen to their perspectives sets them at ease. I explain that I am making photographs of a diverse range of human-animal encounters and through this experience I want to learn about their particular relationships with animals. By adopting an attitude that is as neutral as possible and a format that is not documentary, I cultivate perhaps a shared concern on some level between subject, photographer and viewer.
Untitled, 2016, from Love and Loss (2013-2019)
OPP: Can you say more about not taking a documentary approach?
JS: Photography is an inherently problematic medium when it comes to finding an even give and take, when the photographer is who determines how a subject is represented or perceived. Troubled by this dilemma, I sought ways to address problematic forms of representation used in documentary practices by implementing strategies that dilute the authority of the medium of photography. For the film and installation, Docket, which came out of my experience as a Guardian ad Litem volunteer, I asked individuals that had “aged out” of the foster care system to speak alone with the camera. By removing myself as a factor, emphasis was placed on the voice of the individual and their unfiltered story. The comfortability of the subjects surprised me when I discovered the depth of emotion that poured out of each of them. I feel that intervening in my own process as image-maker, depoliticizing the photographic agenda and acknowledging the inadequacies of representation in past work has contributed to how I chose to confront the messy indefinable nature of our relationships with animals from a place of honesty and compassion.
Untitled, from Of One and The Other (2013-2018)
OPP: How much do you guide your subjects in the photographic work? How much do you wait for the decisive moment?
JS: I believe in taking an informed and impassioned approach to communicating with my subjects. Well before I started making the pictures, I was volunteering in shelters and sanctuaries, which gave me an enlightened perspective. I experienced firsthand the unique dynamic between injured animals and individuals that dedicate their lives to their care. It is important to me to immerse myself in the subject matter and be a participant as well as a storyteller. Working in wildlife rehabilitation became a means of entry into these worlds and I was compelled to photograph the fragile harmony at stake particularly for birds of prey in captivity. When the series expanded to include other complicated relationships with animals that were more controversial I wanted to make it evident in the work that you have to look at this topic from many different angles because it is far from black and white. I seek a poetic way to represent what I am feeling about my subjects and lead the viewer into the content. Even though I feel strongly about the topic, I take a gentle approach as opposed to a radical one. My pictures are an invitation not a confrontation and more theater then documentation.
In knowing clearly what I want to communicate, it is necessary for me to both guide my subjects as well as wait for the decisive moment. I look for, as well as evoke, unexpected encounters and rare moments when the veil separating humans and animals lifts and a connection is established. This idea came out of my own desire to interact with wild animals, which is why I made the pictures of people interacting with big cats. The images of people hugging big cats are enactments of the fine line between adoration and exploitation captured the moment it surfaced between the cub and the person. I am sensitive to subtle gestures a subject might exude, both human and animal; I work with those cues and weave in my narrative. Some of the interactions are candid and others are a blend of directed and found moments. I use this approach to nudge the image in the direction I envision without compromising the integrity of the moment.
Untitled, 2016, from Love and Loss (2013-2019)
OPP: The images from Love and Loss especially made me cry. What a sad and complicated set of emotions! What was your experience with 4H before beginning this series?
JS: I’m happy the images touched you. My colleague in the photography department at Daytona State College introduced me to the people that run the Livestock auctions at the Volusia County Fair in Deland, Florida. He had been shooting behind the scenes there for several years. I was granted a press pass to photograph as well. I learned about the program through my colleague and became more familiar with 4H over the years as I met the children and their families. It was interesting to see the same children returning each year and witness how much they evolved from being so new to the process, unsure and timid alongside eager parents coaching them, to confident seasoned participants that now coach the newcomers.
Untitled, 2016, from Love and Loss (2013-2019)
OPP: Do the kids talk to you about the complicated emotions that you capture? How aware are they of what they are feeling?
JS: The children are complicated; there are many layers to them. I hear a multitude of comments and some really stick with me. During the course of the week, the kids tell me it is hard but they are ok with it. They are steadfast in their dedication to the program and feel that what they are doing is very good for them, as well as for the animals. Parents have told me that the process is difficult and is definitely not for everyone because of how emotionally trying it can be. They’ve said that if some of these kids were not in the program that they would be on the streets. Despite their hard exteriors, the children are very affectionate with their animals. At the conclusion of auction night they have limited time to say good-bye. The tone completely changes. Waves of emotion pour out of them during these last moments with their animals. They sit quietly with them; their faces tear streaked as they grieve openly. Before this time they are so busy with the prep and the performance that there is a bit of a disconnect. They are all business on the show floor, very poised and intent on capturing the attention of the judge. When they win there is that incredible sense of accomplishment and pride. It is a celebration of their devotion to the health and growth of that animal.
There are a lot of justifications that help them compartmentalize their sadness. They say the week is so hard on the animals that by auction night the animals are essentially “ready to go." They have said the pigs don’t stop growing and by two years of age they are so large and uncomfortable that they have to be slaughtered. They tell me that we are going to eat meat anyways therefore why not have us take care of the animals in a humane healthy way instead of in a slaughterhouse. Then there are some that begin the process of grieving and saying good-bye well before the auction. One child told me that she walked her pig up to the top of a hill and sat in a patch of flowers with her the day before the fair. They seem to move on pretty quickly after their animals are gone; they are capable of coming back each year to repeat the process again. Although their grief is unmistakable, they feel it is just part of it. They are forever impacted by their experiences whether the reality of raising animals for slaughter has a positive or negative effect; it is different for every individual.
Untitled, 2012, from Clemency Raptor (2012-2013)
OPP: Of One and The Other (2013-2018) goes beyond the 4H images to capture other relationships between humans and animals, some caring and some exploitative. Some images look violent but actually capture life-saving actions, like the bird being x-rayed. Can you talk about this slippage between optics and reality?
JS: I have noticed several paradoxes in these environments, especially in rehabilitation centers for birds of prey. The reality and the optics contradict one another in the bird pictures because rehabbers are altruistic in their attempts to shield animals from harm, yet they have to maintain an emotional distance because this is essential to the bird’s survival in the wild when released. I depict a level of clinical detachment due to the volume of death that comes along with working to save animals that are injured. The harsh reality that rehabbers face is that there is simply not enough space for all of the birds to live out their lives in captivity and the ones that are deemed unreleasable have to be euthanized. Despite their efforts only some of the birds are released. The images symbolize this grim reality and are therefore visibly unsettling. In some of the most altruistic environments that I photograph in there is often the most detachment, which is considered humane in rescue and rehabilitation. A hood over the bird’s eyes is meant to keep him calm while he is being examined; yet the slumped posture and docile appearance of the bird addresses the conflict intrinsic to these types of encounters.
Untitled, from Of One and The Other (2013-2018)
OPP: It also strikes me that some of the most tender pictures involve the most exploitative actions. I’m thinking of the young men caressing taxidermy deer heads.
JS: There is a duality of violence and manufactured tenderness found in the image of the young man holding a deer head to his forehead in front of a red fence. The image is also intended to symbolize the complexity and irony found in our relationships with animals. The man’s gesture represents a taxidermist or hunter’s admiration for his craft or can be read as an expression of remorse. The portrait symbolizes the boundaries and belief systems that clash and overlap in society, one of these being that hunters have a closer relationship with nature then someone who turns a blind eye and buys their meat in a sanitized package in the supermarket because it is easier then killing and butchering it themselves. The care the taxidermist takes when meticulously crafting keepsakes from hunted animals is a form of preserving the living. The picture depicts brutality but also the love that a hunter or taxidermist has for nature.
Untitled, from Of One and The Other (2013-2018)
OPP: What other complicated stories have you encountered?
JS: Extremely common are the stories of animals in captivity that were bred for use as pets, although they wind up being kept in less then desirable conditions because their owners find they cannot properly care for them. Because of this inability to respect and honor our boundaries, animals end up being neglected and then rescued by sanctuaries, which are overflowing due to the volume of animals caught in this mess. Animals are entangled in a vicious cycle as well as the people involved with their care. The animals are hybrids, inexorably caught between two worlds: unable to survive in nature, they are condemned to captivity. Many people make enormous sacrifices for the good of their rescued animals that are not always ideal. Caretakers of rescued tigers have had to make the difficult choice to put their animals on display in glass transport cases at wealthy people’s parties in order for guests to take pictures of themselves next to the tiger. Ironically, this helped the caretakers finance large enclosures for their tigers. The image of the white tiger in the glass transport case among enclosures was made to symbolize this dilemma, and the tiger was in no way harmed. Her caretakers are altruistic and bound by their commitment to provide a good life for their big cats, which they consider members of their family.
Untitled, from Of One and The Other (2013-2018)
OPP: It seems that you offer the same empathy to all your subjects. Do you ever experience a sense of conflict when photographing a situation that you don’t feel is ideal for the animals? How do you deal with that?
JS: Yes, I did feel a sense of conflict because I was stuck in the middle between rescue groups that advocate for preservation and protection and (therefore oppose cub encounters as inhumane) and the people selling these encounters, who say that they are educating the public about the plight of animals in the wild. I was caught up in the ethics of what people were doing and the price animals were paying one way or the other. It helps me to take into account that most of the people I meet have good intentions and there were circumstances that led them to compromise. When I say that my subjects all love animals, I admit this is a way to find the positive in the negative. I put my camera between my subjects and myself at times as a distancing device to take a step back and be more of an observer. The notion of distance is cultivated in my images as well. A lot of my own conflict with what I witness surfaces in the images. Despite the sad situations that I see with the 4H children, I find comfort in their maturity and devotion.
Through the many discussions that have been sparked by the images and the dialogue that has been created, I feel reassurance that the message I aim to impart is reaching people. Witnessing the growing movement where animals are seen more and more as sentient beings and the spotlight that National Geographic, among others, has repeatedly cast on numerous undesirable conditions for animals brings me so much hope that attitudes are changing.
To see more of Jayanti's work, please visit www.jayantiseilerphotography.com.