In 2017, Newest Americans participated in Photoville, the largest festival of photojournalism in New York City, drawing over 80,000 visitors. This visual extravaganza at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge uses shipping containers as galleries and hosts nightly presentations.
Opening Night
We kicked off the festival with a grand opening night presentation from a stage in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, projecting several of our photo and video stories, and interviewing characters from those projects. We ended the night with a performance by musicians from our film “Notes For My Homeland” playing Arabic classical music accompanied by a whirling dervish.
The Exhibit
Our exhibition was an opportunity not only to share our work, but to ask visitors to lend their voices in representing who we are and how we got here. Our Arrivals Booth – where visitors could take a photograph and share their stories about how they and their families came to the United States – drew over 500 people. The result is in an incredible mosaic of human migration, resilience and cross pollination. It is a celebration of the complex factors that brought us together at this moment, in this place. What could be more salient at a time when our nation is debating what it means to be American and who deserves to claim that mantle?
September 13-24, 2017 • Brooklyn, NY
NEW YORK, September 13th, 2017. Newest Americans container at Photoville 2017. 
NEW YORK, September 13th, 2017. Newest Americans container at Photoville 2017. 
