Taryn Simon is an American photographer, artist, and writer. She was born in 1975 in New York City and grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia. She received her BFA from Brown University in 1997 and her MFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2002.
Simon's work has been exhibited internationally at institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Guggenheim Museum. Her photographs explore themes such as power structures, identity, memory, and history. Her work often combines text with images to create a narrative that examines how individuals are shaped by their environment.
In 2008, Simon published her first book An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar which documents places that are not typically seen by the public. This project was followed by A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters I-XVIII (2011) which explores family histories through portraits and archival material. In 2013 she released Birds of the West Indies which features photographs of birds found in Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and other Caribbean islands.
Simon has received numerous awards for her work including a Guggenheim Fellowship (2008), a MacArthur Fellowship (2009), a Hasselblad Foundation International Award (2010), and a Deutsche Börse Photography Prize (2013). She currently lives and works in New York City.