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Christopher Sims is a documentary photographer from Atlanta, Georgia, currently on the faculty at Duke University, Durham, N.C. The 71 color digital photographs in this collection appear in his book, The Pretend Village: Inside the U.S. Military Training Grounds (2021). The photographs were taken by Sims from 2005-2018 at fictitious Iraqi and Afghan villages constructed on U.S. Army bases in remote areas of North Carolina and Louisiana, and in Death Valley, California. Images taken between military training exercises show actors, many of them real-life immigrant Afghans and Iraqis, playing police officers, doctors, craftspeople, farmers, and café owners. Images taken during training include American soldiers in motion or at rest, fictional civilians and insurgents, and simulations of dead or wounded soldiers and civilians. Other images are of buildings, streets, fake interiors, props, rubble, and graffiti and murals. The inkjet prints measure 17x22 inches. Acquired as part of the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University.