“In nature, non-human animals’ physical diversity is viewed as, among other things, a function of sexual selection. In the city, it would be politically problematic to posit the same statement about human physical diversity.

Where human diversity is often politically fraught, diversity in non-human animals’ is a photo opportunity. Humans’ perception of visual first impressions across a variety of species is indicative of the great divide humans place between themselves and non-human animals.

Armed with our cameras and this concept, we approached “Darwin’s Islands: The Galápagos Islands and New York City.” Two incredibly diverse locations, one island grouping with the greatest range of non-human animals on earth, and the other island, overwhelmed by Earth’s hegemonic species.

With a simple photography project—trying to observe the details of non-human diversity on the Galapagos and of human diversity in New York City—we attempt to highlight and question the fundamental differences between how non-human and human physical diversity is perceived. And most of all, how these differences represent an aspect of humanity’s ideological separation of self from the animalia kingdom.

We ask the viewer if they can identify which human subjects gave permission and which were not asked to. We ask the viewer to consider their boundaries with being photographed or photographing others, and if these same standards apply to photographing animals. We ask the viewer to question why these boundaries exist, if they should exist, and ways beyond visual representation that they are expressed.”—Eliza Lambert, Dan Mortiz-Rabson, and Maddie Stanley