Being Animal presents Diana Michener's most recent body of work, poignant photographs of animals that for the artist have become close to self-portraits. Michener began photographing animals unexpectedly during a trip to India in 2006 where, intimidated by the chaos of the street, she wandered into a zoo and turned her lens to its rhinoceros, elephants and gazelles. Haunted by the resulting images of confinement, Michener became increasingly obsessed with them and decided to expand the project, first at the menagerie at Paris' Jardin des Plants and later in various zoos throughout Europe and the USA. During her visit to each zoo, Michener remained silent and still for hours in front of the cages, almost in communion with these creatures who take on a close to mythical dignity in her photos.

Born in Boston in 1940, Diana Michener holds a Bachelor of Arts from Barnard College in New York and later studied with Lisette Model at New York's New School for Social Research. Michener has exhibited internationally, including her retrospective "Silence Me" at the Maison Européene de la Photographie in Paris in 2001. Her books with Steidl include the award-winning Dogs, Fires, Me (2005), 3 Poems (2006), Sweethearts (2009) and Figure Studies (2011).