Outside the Imperial War Museum, a small boy runs to photograph the 15in naval guns on his father’s phone. During the holidays the museum is a magnet for boys of all ages, bursting as it is with military toys. But in the excitement over the monumental hardware, some smaller exhibits are being overlooked.

Up on the third floor, the latest IWM Contemporary exhibition (until 19 March) is almost deserted, despite its display of what look like actual toys: gaily painted miniature models of American military drones, echoed in brightly coloured silhouettes on the walls of the room.

They are the work of Pakistani-American artist Mahwish Chishty, who since studying miniature painting at the National College of Arts in Lahore has put her traditional skills to unorthodox use. On a visit home in 2011, Chishty became uncomfortably aware of a strange new feature of life in her native country: the looming presence of unmanned aerial vehicles, alien eyes-in-the-sky that are more often heard than seen. She decided to make the invisible visible.