#37 CAMERA Book Review: Simon Brann Thorpe - Toy Soldiers

A look through the fascinating book highlighting the plight and fight for land in the Western Sahara by Simon Brann Thorpe, entitled Toy Soldiers.

Simon Brann Thorpe's Toy Soldiers was published by Dewi Lewis in 2015 and examines the long running conflict in Western Sahara through a collaboration with members of the Polisario Front. Rather than producing conventional war photography, Thorpe worked with Sahrawi soldiers to create carefully staged portraits and tableaux in which they appear as life sized toy soldiers mounted on plastic style bases. The project grew from Thorpe's earlier work on landmine survivors in the region and sought to explore the consequences of a conflict that has remained politically unresolved since Spain withdrew from the territory in 1975. Photographed in the Polisario controlled area of Liberated Western Sahara, the work combines documentary practice with conceptual photography to address themes of displacement, identity and political stalemate.

The photographs deliberately blur the boundary between reality and representation, using the familiar form of childhood toy soldiers to question how war is remembered, consumed and understood through visual culture. Alongside portraits, landscapes and choreographed military scenes, Thorpe examines the psychological effects of prolonged uncertainty on individuals whose lives have been shaped by decades of unresolved conflict. By combining collaboration with constructed imagery, Toy Soldiers challenges the conventions of documentary photography while drawing attention to one of the world's least reported territorial disputes, creating a body of work that is both visually distinctive and historically grounded.

Ltd Edition of 700
Clothbound hardback
112 pages, 96 colour photographs
280mm x 248mm

Simon B Thorpe
Dewi Lewis

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