At first this image seems like it might be of the Vietnam War, but on closer inspection that doesn’t make sense. The Viet Cong sniper and U.S. troops have the correct gear and outfits, but the landscape is all wrong. In fact, the “sniper” in this image is the artist herself, the men she aims at are Vietnam War reenactors, and the whole scenario is happening on the mid-Atlantic Coast at the turn of the 21st century.

When Lê, born in Saigon during the war and evacuated to the U.S. as a teenager, discovered these reenactors and asked to photograph them, her participation was a condition of her access, her very experience and ethnicity a way to add “authenticity” to the war games. Each photograph in the series, titled Small Wars, was made with the reenactors’ assistance, blurring the line between documentation and performance.

—Text taken from the Carter Handbook (2023)