Theo Humphries - SARS Wars

Theo Humphries | SARS Wars
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SARS Wars by Theo Humphries

Theo Humphries’ SARS Wars Toys reimagines the iconic Kenner Star Wars action figures of the 1970s and 80s through the lens of the COVID-19 pandemic. These “reaction figures” transform familiar pop-cultural artefacts into wry reflections on collective experience, humour, and crisis. By hybridising childhood nostalgia with the unsettling realities of the pandemic, Humphries exposes how design and satire can become tools for both critique and coping.

While often humorous, the works oscillate between comedy and discomfort, acknowledging the uneven distribution of suffering and the complex emotional terrain of the pandemic years. Each figure embodies fragments of media discourse, governmental response, and personal observation—an accumulation of the absurdities and anxieties that defined 2020–2023.

Rooted in traditions of Pop Art and critical design, SARS Wars Toys operates as cultural archaeology: objects that document how crisis reshapes visual and emotional vocabularies. Humphries describes them as “materialised jokes”—artefacts of gallows humour that helped him process the disorientation of the period. Displayed collectively, the toys become a playful yet poignant archive of adaptation, absurdity, and resilience in the face of global disruption.

The Liberation Collective
2025