A small community of apes survives within the borders of Europe. Located in the territory of Gibraltar, this colony of Barbary macaques numbers around three hundred individuals.

Barbary macaques are organized in socially complex, hierarchical and highly territorial communities. For centuries, they have shared their territory with humans within the narrow rocky promontory of the Rock of Gibraltar. This limestone strip of six square kilometers is the only country in Europe where humans and apes coexist.

The first evidence of their presence came through English settlers during the 14th century, when the tip of Gibraltar (then Spanish territory) was conquered by the British Empire. It is likely that the settlement of the first specimens that gave rise to the colony occurred quite accidentally during the rule of the Caliphate of Spain, around the year AD 1000. For centuries, the precarious balance established between macaques and humans repeatedly endangered the survival of the colony itself, leading to fewer than ten specimens during the years of the Second World War. At the wish of Winston Churchill, fertile specimens from North Africa were introduced to avert the inevitable disappearance of the species.

The images were captured over seven long days between March and August 2023. The physical presence of humans was deliberately avoided, despite its predominant role in the everyday life of most of these primates. The research focused on the expressiveness of their postures and gestures, which alternate between states of fierce readiness and others of submissive vulnerability.Their gazes always remained impenetrable, some filled with curiosity, others with circumspection, and still others completely indifferent, perhaps resigned to the relentless human shaping that surrounds them day after day.

Book design: Marcello Jacopo Biffi, texts: Alessio Keilty, Federico Nejrotti, illustrations: Filippo Moia