Synurbization: Shared Space

Synurbization: Shared Space is a documentary photo series on wildlife adapted to city life.

The work centers on the monkeys in Kathmandu, mainly the rhesus macaques around Swayambhunath, the "Monkey Temple," a Buddhist site. The monkeys are treated as sacred there. They also live almost entirely on human terms. They take offerings, steal food, and move through crowds of pilgrims, vendors, and tourists.

Their faces and gestures are so human that the line between "us" and "them" blurs. And the humans around them go as far as to interact with them or walk right past.

Cities are built on habitat. The monkeys did not move into Kathmandu. It grew around them. As human territory expands, wildland-urban interface is something we recon with more and more. But much wildlife cannot simply adapt to coexisting with humans.

This project asks viewers to look at a species that has made a life in an urban landscape, because they're accepted by the people there.