Trapped for Entertainment

• Prize
  Gold in Press/Other
• Photographer
  Sandra Hoyn, Germany
• Website
  https://www.sandrahoyn.de
• Instagram
  https://www.instagram.com/sandrahoyn/

Dressed in boxing gloves, an orangutan raises his hand - not in victory, but on command. A symbol of strength, performed by one who never chose to fight.

Photographed in various zoos and safari parks across Thailand, this series shows the exploitation and suffering of primates for human entertainment.

Primates are intelligent and social animals. Trainers try to humanise these animals – dressing them up, making them perform through fear and punishment, turning them into props. What tourists perceive as entertainment is, in reality, a situation of suffering for the animals involved.

Sandra Hoyn (b. 1976) is an independent photojournalist based in Hamburg, Germany. She studied photography at the University of Applied Sciences Hamburg, graduating in 2005. She started working for magazines, NGOs and on her personal photo projects, focusing on social, environmental and human rights issues.

Awards 2017 she received the first prize of the Sony World Photography Awards in category daily life and POYi – Pictures of the Year International third place category portrait. In 2016 she received the Magnum Photography Award in category photojournalism, 2015 World Press Photo Award third prize, category nature singles.