Richard Mosse’s Infra represents a radical rupture in the tradition of conflict photojournalism, capturing the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo through a deeply conceptual framework. Frustrated by the visual fatigue and conventional tropes that often render such conflicts invisible to Western audiences, Mosse deliberately deployed Kodak Aerochrome, a discontinued military reconnaissance infrared film originally designed to detect camouflaged targets. By turning this weaponized technology onto the Congolese rebel factions and the lush, contested landscape they inhabit, the project fundamentally challenges how war is documented and consumed, forcing a re-engagement with the region's complex geopolitical reality.

Aesthetically, the publication is defined by its seductive, hallucinatory color palette, where the verdant jungle foliage is rendered in hyper-saturated shades of crimson, magenta, and pink. This extreme chromatic shift creates a profound psychological friction between the devastating reality of the armed conflict and the surreal, almost artificial beauty of the resulting images. Mosse’s compositions often utilize the grand scale of traditional landscape photography, juxtaposing the towering, vibrant terrain with the heavily armed, yet vulnerable, figures of the soldiers. The meticulous large-format execution flattens the chaotic environment into tightly constructed graphic planes, stripping away documentary immediacy in favor of a deliberate, theatrical artificiality.

Infra is celebrated for successfully dismantling the boundaries between objective reportage and conceptual art.