Fifty-One US Military Outposts

Fifty-One US Military Outposts is Mishka Henner's first book to use satellite imagery as both research tool and creative medium, a project that replaces the photographer's camera with the reconnaissance apparatus already deployed by states and institutions.

Working only from material already in the public domain — official US military and veterans' websites and forums, domestic and international news reports, and both official and leaked government documents — Henner located and compiled aerial views of fifty-one American military outposts, overt and covert, spread across countries including Germany, Japan, South Korea, Qatar, Djibouti, and the United Kingdom. The book takes the plain form of a print-on-demand softcover, its bureaucratic presentation matching the source material it repurposes.

Henner began the project in the years following the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, prompted by a wish to understand the scale of US military engagement abroad; a related portfolio of prints from the series has been exhibited at Carroll/Fletcher in London, the Grundy Art Gallery in Blackpool, and Örebro Kunsthall in Sweden. It marks the start of Henner's long-running use of satellite imagery and open-source data as a documentary method.