Guardian reviews Simon Brann Thorpe’s collection of photographs “Toy Soldiers,” with an introductory essay by Jacob Mundy

June 2015


The result is a series of images that show the absurdity of war, but also the plight of the individual soldier locked into a conflict that must seem endless. “It is difficult to look at Simon Brann Thorpe’s Toy Soldiers,” writes Mundy, “and not dwell on the powerful metaphor these photographs literally play with. Fighters in the Western Saharan liberation movement have become playthings. But whose toys are they, and what is the game being played?” These are the kinds of questions that echo through this odd, and oddly powerful, conceptual meditation on war – and war photography.