Participating Artists Press Agency
“Migrationpapa”
Friday 12th of December 2025 – page 3
On a Monday morning in November 2010, six photographers in five cities around the world take their cameras to urban neighbourhoods where newcomers arrive. The photos flow into the PAPA website like a wave moving around the world. First from Bangladesh, five hours later from Rotterdam and Lagos – cities in the same time zone. Detroit and São Paulo complete the group another seven hours later. From the first week the photos and captions were projected on the windows of the cultural centre at the entrance to the neighbourhood in Rotterdam. The same will happen in other cities. In this way the inhabitants of the various newcomers neighbourhoods not only get a fresh perspective on their own lives but they also get to see how newcomers in other cities live. Migrationpapa is a PAPA project for Kosmopolis Rotterdam with the generous support of Hivos
Saturday 6th of November 2010
Detroit -
Alex Martinez shows off one of his roosters in the living room of his Southwest Detroit house. Martinez grew up on a farm in Mexico and tries to hold on…
Marcin Szczepanski –
Migrationpapa
Rotterdam -
Sanne Luijben graduated from art school in 2009. From the south she moved to Tarwewijk. Sanne likes Tarwewijk because of its international atmosphere. Houses are cheap too. She recently had…
Nies Medema –
Migrationpapa
Rotterdam -
‘It makes me happy to help others,’ Ali Toptas says, ‘I remember when my mother and brothers and sisters and me moved here, coming from Turkey, joining may father…
Nies Medema –
Migrationpapa
Rotterdam -
Recently al lot of Polish people started populating the Tarwewijk. In the evening the quarter fills up with cars carrying Polish numberplates. They do not work in Rotterdam but travel…
Lino Hellings –
Migrationpapa
Rotterdam -
The Polish supermarket is a huge success. The Yugoslavian Zeko moved to Rotterdam nineteen years ago . Since four years he lives in the Tarwewijk. He started of as a greengrocer…
Lino Hellings –
Migrationpapa
Detroit -
A man has set up a yard sale in front of his house in Detroit’s Near East Side. He’s trying to sell the contents of a neighbouring house. Three chairs…
Marcin Szczepanski –
Migrationpapa
Sao Paulo -
Bolivians or not? It is dificult to know. They don’t want to talk about theyr activities and where they are going to, where they live or work. In this photo…
Ines Correa –
Migrationpapa
Detroit -
A Latino man talks on the phone while looking at the house of his sister in Mexicantown that is engulfed in flames. Fires are daily occurrences in the city due…
Marcin Szczepanski –
Migrationpapa
Dhaka -
With the upper floors of the bazaar demolished, light and rain come through the new openings. Plastic sheets of different colours make up the impromptu rooftop. Nice colours and space…
Shahidul Alam –
Migrationpapa
Rotterdam -
Ali Toptas tells me why there are no children in the play ground I saw the day before yesterday. There is a brand new play ground, also not far from…
Nies Medema –
Migrationpapa
Rotterdam -
For what reasons do people leave the house/the city/the country they live in? And why do they choose The Tarwewijk as a quarter to live in? One of the explanations…
Lino Hellings –
Migrationpapa
Rotterdam -
Inside the Surinamese shop there is another shop a videotheque, your special supplier of Bollywood CDs and DVDs. On the yellow sign on the ceiling it says ‘Do not bring…
Lino Hellings –
Migrationpapa
Detroit -
Magnificent mural was painted on the side of a Mexican food store Hacienda on West Vernor Highway in a neighborhood called Mexicantown in Southwest Detroit. Detroit is home to a…
Marcin Szczepanski –
Migrationpapa
Rotterdam -
After having watched the (probably) illegal workers going off in the dark and after having said goodbeye to Arthur, I start to explore the quarter by car. Within short a…
Lino Hellings –
Migrationpapa
Lagos -
Cart pusher moving tones of goods from the Iddo terminus market. The market is popular for transitional trading. This has made it a hub for many new comers in Lagos…
Andrew Esiebo –
Migrationpapa
Sao Paulo -
This image was made in the center of Sao Paulo City. In this region was the only Terminal Bus Station of the town until 1982, when it was turned off…
Ines Correa –
Migrationpapa
Rotterdam -
We do have a big problem in integrating newcomers in our society. It is hopefull that people from Surinam, a former Dutch colony seem to have found their way up…
Lino Hellings –
Migrationpapa
Dhaka -
“Beri Band†the embankment around Dhaka city, where a lot of migrants from the villages end up staying. The photograph of the two men might have sexual overtones in other…
Shahidul Alam –
Migrationpapa
Detroit -
An abandoned building on Chene St. in Detroit has been turned into an urban canvas by an artist. The painting presents cartoon characters engaged in violence. It was created on…
Marcin Szczepanski –
Migrationpapa
Detroit -
Empty houses have been turned into art installations. Heidelberg Project is the most well known example of urban art in Detroit inspired by socio-economic issues prevalent in the city. A…
Marcin Szczepanski –
Migrationpapa
Rotterdam -
Due to floods in Pakistan, the okra in the grocery store of the Sheikh family is now imported from Kenia and Surinam.…
Nies Medema –
Migrationpapa
Sao Paulo -
When I arrived in the neighborhood of “Bom Retiro†it was lunchtime. A good time to be there because I was not allowed to enter inside the stores, people didn’t…
Ines Correa –
Migrationpapa
Rotterdam -
Two balconies in pensioners home ‘ Harmonie’ (Harmony). One with a Dutch flag, the other with a satellite dish, allowing her to watch TV shows from all over the world…
Nies Medema –
Migrationpapa
Detroit -
Two men who migrated to the city from Kentucky in 1950s work on an old truck that belongs to the one on the right. They stayed behind when most of…
Marcin Szczepanski –
Migrationpapa