The Theater of War
Roman Ehrlich/Michael Disqué

In the summer of 2015 writer Roman Ehrlich and photographer Michael Disqué visited the German army base Camp Marmal in Mazar-e Sharif in Afghanistan. Their aim was to portray the life of the soldiers in the camp without falling back on the standard narratives of journalistic reportage.
At the heart of the book are the structures that the soldiers have created for themselves and the interaction between the camp’s architecture and its inhabitants; the extreme artificiality of the living environment; and the civilian aspect of life there that extends throughout the camp in spite of
it being a military organization. Derived from a term used to mean the battlefield, Theatre of War represents all the aspects of “staging” that determine warfare — depicted here first and foremost in its most banal form: the everyday life of the camp as seen in its offices, workshops, and accommodation areas, in its utility hubs and kitchens, as the war’s employees occupy their time waiting and contemplating.