Christopher Sims

Artist Works

The Pretend Villages of Iraq and Afghanistan - 2009
Jihad Lamp, Fort Polk, LA 15x15;30x30;40x40

Artist Bio

Christopher Sims, with remarkable access to our military bases, has been working on a series entitled Theater of War: The Pretend Villages of Iraq and Afghanistan.  Sims makes photographs within fictitious Iraqi and Afghan villages on the training grounds of U.S. Army bases, places largely unknown to most Americans. The villages are situated in the deep forests of North Carolina and Louisiana, and in a great expanse of desert near Death Valley in California. Each base features clusters of villages spread out over thousands of acres. The villages are places of fantastic imagination and serve as a strange and poignant training station for people heading off to war.

Mr. Sims is the recipient of the prestigious 2010 Baum Award for Emerging American Photographers of The Baum Foundation and SF Camerawork .

SOLO AND TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2010 SF Camerawork, The Baum Award. San Francisco, California.
2010 Texas Tech University School of Art Theater of War: The Pretend Villages of Iraq and Afghanistan. Lubbock, Texas.
2009 Georgia College and State University War on Terror: Inside/Out—Photographs by Christopher Sims and Stacy Pearsall.   Milledgeville, Georgia.
2009 Griffin Museum of Photography Dana Fritz and Christopher Sims. Winchester, Massachusetts.
2009 Civilian Art Projects Guantanamo Bay. Curated and organized by Amanda Maddox, Corcoran Gallery
of Art, and Jayme McLellan, Civilian Art Projects. Washington, District  of Columbia.
2009 Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art War on Terror: Inside/Out—Photographs by Christopher Sims and Stacy
Pearsall. Charleston, South Carolina. 2009.
2008 Center for the Study of the American South, UNC–Chapel Hill Theater of War: The Pretend Villages of Iraq and Afghanistan. Curated and organized by Ann Stewart, Ann Stewart Fine Art. Chapel Hill, North  Carolina.
2008 Decker Gallery, Maryland Institute College of Art Thesis Exhibition. Baltimore, Maryland.

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

 2010

Clark Gallery/Concord Art Association: Seeing is Believing, Concord, MA

FotoFest Biennial
Discoveries of the Meeting Place. Houston, Texas.
 
Impressions Gallery
Bringing the War Home. Bradford, United Kingdom.
 
Concord Art Association / Clark Gallery
Seeing Is Believing. Concord, Massachusetts.
 
Criss Library, University of Nebraska at Omaha
Game Play. Omaha, Nebraska.
 
Photo Center Northwest
Photolucida’s Critical Mass 2009. Seattle, Washington.
 
Abdijmuseum Ten Duinen
Act of Faith. Koksijde, Belgium.

2009
Light Factory
Annuale. Charlotte, North Carolina.
 
Houston Center for Photography
Unite and Untie. Houston, Texas.
 
2008
Civilian Art Projects
Pastime. Washington, District of Columbia.
Warsaw School of Social Psychology
Act of Faith. Warsaw, Poland.
School of Humanities and Journalism
Act of Faith. Poznan, Poland.
North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
Traveling exhibition to multiple venues in North Carolina.