Laos: Legacy of a Secret examines how the effects of war remain embedded in everyday surroundings after the fighting has ended. Sean Sutton’s photographs address the danger posed by unexploded ordnance in Laos, where fields and other familiar places became sites of continuing risk. The book connects a history of aerial bombardment with its consequences for people trying to live and work in the affected landscape.

The publisher’s account places the project against the bombing of Laos during the Vietnam War, from 1964 to 1973. Many of the weapons failed to explode on impact. The photographs concern the human consequences of those remnants, bringing attention to a form of violence that persists beyond the military campaign itself. This historical context is essential to reading the project; figures in the original publication describe its period rather than conditions today.

Sutton’s work developed through his engagement with MAG, the Mines Advisory Group. The publisher describes years spent documenting both the humanitarian impact of armed conflict and the organisation’s response across several countries. In this volume, the focus is Laos. The relationship with MAG connects the photographic record to the practical work of addressing the dangers left by war, and the organisation supported publication of the book.

Tim Page contributes an introduction, with additional texts by Thongloun Sisoulith and Lou McGrath. Their written contributions accompany Sutton’s photography; they are not credited as makers of the book’s photographs. Published by Dewi Lewis in 2010, the hardback contains 156 pages and 93 duotone photographs, at 265 by 240 millimetres. For readers of documentary photobooks, it offers a sustained encounter with the continuing human and environmental aftermath of conflict.