Miniature Scenes of War from a Child’s Perspective Recreated with Toys

By Alison Nastasi

November 10, 2013

Children in photographer Brian McCarty’s home city of West Hollywood, California don’t experience the trauma of war in their day-to-day lives, but there are young people across the globe who are confronted with violence daily. Collaborating with therapists and caregivers in places of active conflict, McCarty uses the drawings and stories of children that detail their lives and experiences, recreating them with locally acquired toys in miniature form. “Because cognitive ability is often ahead of language development, children typically share their experiences and cope with associated feelings through indirect methods of communication, such as art and play,” the artist writes on the project website — which we learned about from My Modern Met. “As a result, their personal accounts of war often go unseen, even when studying its [effects].” The children remotely direct the resulting scenes, which invites them to “actively participate and use the photographic process as a form of therapeutic play.” See how McCarty’s photos help give children a voice amid the devastation of war in our gallery.

Photo credit: Brian McCarty