Roman Ehrlich & Michael Disque the Theater of War

In the summer of 2015, writer Roman Ehrlich (born 1983) and photographer Michael Disque (born 1980) 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. What Ehrlich and Disque found themselves drawn to at Camp Marmal were the structures that the soldiers had created for themselves, the extreme artificiality of the living environment and the civilian aspects of life that persisted in the camp, despite it being a military organization.

These banalities of war are at the heart of Theatre of War: 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.