Taryn Simon

The speeches by Taryn Simon present her experiences from her far-reaching travels, citing her art as documentation of the cultural diversity all over the world.

Simon graduated from Brown University and was also a Guggenheim Fellow. She is a visiting artist at the Bard College, School of Visual Arts, Yale and Columbia. Some of her work is political in nature, with her 'Contraband' collection in 2010 focusing on the issues of global threats and desires, as well as 'Innocent' in 2003. Her work, both photography and writing has been featured in The New York Times Magazine, as well as in the Metropolitan Meseum of Art, Tate Modern and MOMA.

She has authored multiple books containing her work such as 'An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar.' Her most recent work, 'A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters,' is set to be displayed at the Tate Modern in London.

As the speeches by Taryn Simon show, it does not take a researcher or politician to be able to speak on the plight of people and their bloodlines, rather, the storytelling of art will do.