Innocence Project panel discussion introduced by Taryn Simon

A panel discussion featuring Taryn Simon, Innocence Project co-founders Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck, policy director Rebecca Brown, and exoneree Calvin Johnson, who was photographed by Simon for the series. They discuss the photo series, the first 25 years of the Innocence Project’s work and their hopes for the future of the criminal justice system. The work of Taryn Simon results from rigorous research guided by an interest in systems of categorization and the precarious nature of survival. Turning our attention to the margins of power, where control, disruption, and the contours of its constructedness become visible, she reveals the imperceptible space between language and the visual world—a space in which multiple truths and fantasies are constructed, and where translation and disorientation occur. The technical, physical, and aesthetic realization of her projects often reflects the control and authority that are the very subject of her work. Invoking the form of the archive, Simon imposes the illusion of order on the chaotic and indeterminate nature of her subjects. Simon’s earliest body of work, The Innocents (2002), documents the stories of individuals who served time in prison for violent crimes they did not commit. At issue is the question of photography’s function as a credible eyewitness and arbiter of justice. The primary cause of wrongful conviction is mistaken identification. A victim or eyewitness identifies a suspected perpetrator through law enforcement’s use of photographs and lineups. This procedure relies on the assumption of precise visual memory. But through exposure to composite sketches, mug shots, Polaroids, and lineups, eyewitness memory can change. In the history of these cases, photography offered the criminal-justice system a tool that transformed innocent citizens into criminals. Photographs assisted officers in obtaining eyewitness identifications and aided prosecutors in securing convictions. Simon photographed these men at sites that had particular significance to their illegitimate conviction: the scene of misidentification, the scene of arrest, the scene of the crime, or the scene of the alibi. All of these locations hold contradictory meanings for the subjects. The scene of arrest marks the starting point of a reality based in fiction. The scene of the crime is at once arbitrary and crucial: this place, to which they have never been, changed their lives forever. In these photographs Simon confronts photography’s ability to blur truth and fiction—an ambiguity that can have severe, even lethal, consequences. The Innocents was produced with the support of a John Simon Guggenheim grant and was first exhibited at MoMA PS1 in New York. Recorded on June 25, 2017 in the John Drew Theater at Guild Hall.