SELENE MAGNOLIA Documentary photographer and animal rights activist seleneenamagnolia.com

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Selene 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.