A meditation on war, interminable war, which is formed of photographs by Stephen Dupont that are collaged with rubbings and ink painting by Marshall Weber.

The photographs are sourced from 100s of APs of Dupont’s Generation AK photo book which was printed by Gerhard Steidl in 2015. The photos are of Afghanistan throughout the war years of 1993-2012. The cover photo is of Ahmed Shah Massoud, the revered Northern Alliance leader who was assassinated (allegedly) by Taliban agents.

Weber edited a stark series of 12 of Dupont’s images and bound them into this accordion fold book. He then rubbed military insignia and memorial texts from plaques on the grounds of the Australian War Memorial Museum and Police Memorial (in Canberra) onto the photographs and onto the backs of the photographs. These collages illustrate the persistence of colonial conflicts across the centuries. The found and cut-up text and ghostly images from these memorials form the poetry that intertwines with the photo collage and evidences the linkages between global indigenous liberation struggles.

In a final cohering layer Weber meticulously brushed ink and turmeric pigment throughout all the pages of the book merging the imagery and highlighting various images and texts creating both an epic frieze and an intimate accordion fold book.

Prisoners of War is a part of Weber & Dupont’s Dark Illuminations series along with The Lion of Panjshir, Who Served, Sought Peace, and Kill Them All. Prisoners of War is the first in the series.