Children playing, near Beirut, Lebanon, 1982

For children the detritus of war can function as an improvised playground. Derelict tanks, planes and military vehicles are often reclaimed as impromptu climbing frames. Yet, although the vehicle has been abandoned, an undercurrent of danger remains in the threat of numerous unexploded shells that litter the ground they play on.

"The irony of children playing on an abandoned tank, as if it were a 'jungle gym' in...
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Children playing, near Beirut, Lebanon, 1982

For children the detritus of war can function as an improvised playground. Derelict tanks, planes and military vehicles are often reclaimed as impromptu climbing frames. Yet, although the vehicle has been abandoned, an undercurrent of danger remains in the threat of numerous unexploded shells that litter the ground they play on.

"The irony of children playing on an abandoned tank, as if it were a 'jungle gym' in a schoolyard, recalls the unfortunate irony of a man sleeping on the street in front of a couch in a Mexico City furniture store display window ten years earlier. This rhetoric of contrast is a signature of McCurry's work - declarative, bold, unflinchingly clear. In this photograph, the scene is heightened by the explosive potential of the shells at the children's feet." - Phaidon 55

National Geographic, February 1983, Beirut: Up From the Rubble

Phaidon, 55, Iconic Images, final book_iconic

Make-believe conquers the tools of war as Muslim children clamber over an abandoned antiaircraft gun. Discarded shells around the gun may still be live, like the explosive grievances and vengeance harbored by many of Beirut's factions. Will there at least come a consensus that a time to bomb must give way to a time to rebuild?

Ellis, William S. (February 1993_. Beirut -Up From the Rubble. National Geographic, Vol. 163, No. 2,284

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