Trevor Paglen

Biography

Trevor Paglen is an American artist and geographer whose wide-ranging practice investigates the invisible structures of surveillance, secrecy, and state power through image making, sculpture, investigative journalism, writing, and engineering. Trained in geography as well as art, Paglen brings a rigorous, research-driven methodology to his work, often traveling to remote locations to document classified military installations, spy satellites, and clandestine government programs that are deliberately hidden from public view. His series The Black Sites documents covert CIA facilities used for extraordinary rendition, while The Other Night Sky tracks classified satellites moving across the night sky, and Limit Telephotography uses extreme long-range photographic techniques to capture distant military sites otherwise invisible to the naked eye, connecting his practice to the histories of landscape photography, abstraction, and Romanticism. Paglen's Symbology and Code Names series extend this inquiry into the language and iconography of military and intelligence culture, using text, video, objects, and images to expose the strange, often absurd visual vocabulary through which secretive institutions represent themselves. Beyond documenting secrecy, Paglen is deeply concerned with the broader question of how to see and understand the historical moment in which we live, and how art can help imagine alternative futures beyond current systems of surveillance and control. His work extends into explorations of artificial intelligence and machine vision, questioning how automated systems interpret and classify the world, often revealing biases and blind spots embedded within seemingly neutral technologies. Paglen has exhibited widely at major institutions and has received numerous honors for his work bridging art, science, and investigative research, including a MacArthur Fellowship recognizing his innovative contributions to contemporary art and public understanding of state power. Through meticulous research and striking visual work, Paglen continues to push the boundaries of what documentary and conceptual art can reveal about the unseen forces shaping modern life.