French Artist JR on American Immigration

French artist and “photograffeur” JR has been tackling immigration in America.

With “Unframed,” JR has brought life to the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital in New York harbor. (For those who can’t get to Ellis Island to see the installation in person, check out this NYT photo essay).

JR’s latest project is “Globe Trotters.” He’s been taking photos of recent U.S. immigrants in his studio, creating over-sized prints, and photographing his subjects with their prints on the street of New York. As Dean Robinson so beautifully writes for the NYT:

To be an immigrant is to have moved; to be a New Yorker is to keep moving. As captured here by JR, these newest New Yorkers become portraits in motion, unstuck, peeled loose, set free in the city.

-KitJ