Featuring

Featuring
a series of polaroid images shot by photographers
based in France, the MIGRATE project was founded in the hope of
engaging people in a nuanced conversation around the ongoing

refugee crisis, telling human stories of strength, survival and
integration.

Among those who submitted images, photographer Matthew K. Firpo
placed his focus on a group of local high-school students that he
sees often in his neighbourhood. They hang out at the park after
school, listen to music, do the things that teenagers do.

Spending time with them, taking their portraits, Matthew learned
how they are almost all the children of immigrants, the majority
now first-generation Americans. Yet, perhaps because of this,
they’re race-blind. To him, they represent the best of America, in
their absolute diversity and unequivocal camaraderie. They’re
Filipino, Mexican, French-Caribbean, Jewish, African-American, all
spending time together, as the children of immigrants, as
Americans, as the future.

Capturing this sense of promise and true diversity, his images
are an honest representation of what he believes the future can be.
That one day many years from now, borders, races, nations, all
become, simply. the human race. People are people, everywhere you
go.

The images included in this series were presented in
collaboration with Amastan Paris for Paris Photo.