Outposts

Outposts / Kandahar Province presents Donovan Wylie’s photographs of Forward Operating Bases constructed in the Kandahar Province of Afghanistan. From 2006 to 2011, Canada sent nearly 3,000 military personnel to Afghanistan in support of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force. Serving alongside infantry and artillery, military engineers designed a network of outposts throughout the province. Built on natural promontories with multiple lines of sight, these outposts formed a protective visual architecture. They were frequently positioned on defensive locations established during earlier conflicts and represent reincarnations of past histories under new powers. The resulting images are the latest phase in Wylie’s interrogation of the architecture of modern conflict. The work was made on behalf of the Imperial War Museum in London and with generous support from the Bradford Fellowship in Photography. Donovan Wylie was born in Belfast in 1971, where he currently teaches at the University of Ulster. Wylie is a member of Magnum Photos and his work is in major public and private collections. Steidl has published Wylie’s British Watchtowers (2007), Scrapbook (2009) and Maze (2009). Exhibitions: National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, Bradford, 30 September 2011 to 19 February 2012; Le Bal, Paris, 16 September to 18 December 2011; Imperial War Museum, London, 2012