Simon Brann Thorpe’s *Toy Soldiers* takes as its subject the Western Sahara conflict, which marked its fortieth anniversary in October 2015. The publisher described a then-unresolved conflict in which an estimated 160,000 people have been made refugees, many of whom are now the second or third generation to grow up in that displacement. Against this stalled backdrop, Thorpe’s book works across documentary, landscape and concept-based photography at once, blurring the boundaries between those registers. The friction between them is the point rather than an incidental quality, as he examines the impact and potential consequences of the stalemate.

The work is a unique collaboration between Thorpe, a military commander and the men under his command. Through real soldiers posed as toy soldiers, he reveals the current situation in Western Sahara — a nation in waiting trapped in a historic cycle of colonial conflict, displacement and endless non-resolution. The book thus provides a contemporary archive on the issue of non-resolution and the paradigm of post-colonial cycles of violence within modern conflicts.

Shot entirely on location in the isolated and hauntingly beautiful territory known as ‘Liberated Western Sahara’, the photographs are influenced by the historic works of photographers such as Mathew Brady, Roger Fenton and Edward Curtis. The volume includes texts by Chad Elias and Jacob Mundy.

Born in Zambia in 1970, Simon Brann Thorpe studied photography at the Alberta College of Art & Design, Canada. He has exhibited widely throughout Europe and has received, or been shortlisted for, many awards including the International Photography Awards, the Aftermath Award, the Arte Laguna Prize and the Association of Photographers Awards. Published by Dewi Lewis Publishing as a limited edition of 750 copies, the clothbound hardback runs 112 pages with 96 colour photographs, measuring 280mm x 248mm (ISBN 978-1-907893-67-4).