A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters I-XVIII is a major conceptual photographic monograph and archival project examining bloodlines, fate, chance, and the governing structures of human identity.
Over a four-year period (2008-2011), Simon traveled the globe researching and documenting eighteen distinct bloodlines, each shaped by local history, political conflict, governance, or biological determinism.
Every "Chapter" follows a strict, highly controlled visual typology composed of three distinct panels:
Key use cases include:
- Bureaucracy and Erasure: The titular chapter focuses on Shivdutt Yadav and his relatives in Uttar Pradesh, India, who were officially registered as deceased in government land records by corrupt relatives seeking to inherit their property.
- Fate vs. Determinism: Other chapters explore diverse, high-stakes lineages, including the family of a Iraqi body double for Uday Hussein, victims of the Srebrenica massacre, albino individuals targeted in Tanzania, and laboratory rabbits bred for medical testing.
- Taxonomic Rigor: Simon treats human genealogy with the clinical precision of scientific classification, examining how individual lives are governed by structural forces beyond their control.
Produced in conjunction with major solo exhibitions at the Tate Modern, Neue Nationalgalerie, and MoMA, A Living Man Declared Dead is widely recognized as one of the most ambitious conceptual photobooks of the 21st century.
A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters I-XVIII is a major conceptual photographic monograph and archival project examining bloodlines, fate, chance, and the governing structures of human identity.
Over a four-year period (2008-2011), Simon traveled the globe researching and documenting eighteen distinct bloodlines, each shaped by local history, political conflict, governance, or biological determinism.
Every "Chapter" follows a strict, highly controlled visual typology composed of three distinct panels:
Key use cases include:
- Bureaucracy and Erasure: The titular chapter focuses on Shivdutt Yadav and his relatives in Uttar Pradesh, India, who were officially registered as deceased in government land records by corrupt relatives seeking to inherit their property.
- Fate vs. Determinism: Other chapters explore diverse, high-stakes lineages, including the family of a Iraqi body double for Uday Hussein, victims of the Srebrenica massacre, albino individuals targeted in Tanzania, and laboratory rabbits bred for medical testing.
- Taxonomic Rigor: Simon treats human genealogy with the clinical precision of scientific classification, examining how individual lives are governed by structural forces beyond their control.
Produced in conjunction with major solo exhibitions at the Tate Modern, Neue Nationalgalerie, and MoMA, A Living Man Declared Dead is widely recognized as one of the most ambitious conceptual photobooks of the 21st century.