Why is it so difficult to let go of a sense of superiority over animals? Are we capable of telling history from their point of view? Berenika Steinberg discusses this topic (and a few others) with Marta Bogdańska, the creator of the Shifters album.

I met the visual artist, photographer and filmmaker Marta Bogdańska many years ago, when she was based in Beirut and showing her exhibition about Syrian refugees, Exilium, in Warsaw. This time, we got together to talk about Shifters, Marta’s latest project. Shifters is the title of an exhibition and an album of more than eight hundred pages. In the book, Marta uses a wealth of archival material to look at the history of using animals in armed forces and intelligence agencies.

Berenika Steinberg: A few years ago, when I heard you were doing a project about animal spies, my initial thought was: “How interesting and fun!” Now that I’ve had a look at Shifters, I realize that ‘fun’ was clearly the wrong word in this context.

Marta Bogdańska: That’s true – this topic does feel exotic and that lures you in initially, like bait. At first, you have no idea what to expect, you become invested in the subject. Only after a while do you realize how scary the story underlying the project really is; what has actually happened to animals in wars and espionage programs. What we have done, and are still doing, to animals. True, technology has advanced and, when it comes to the army or espionage programmes, animals are used less extensively, having been replaced by drones and other technologies. But other means of exploiting