A powerful and timely photobook giving voice and visibility to thirty LGBTQIA+ young people experiencing homelessness in New York City. With intimate portraits, personal stories, and audio via a QR code, From the Streets to the Heart is both a work of art and a human rights document, urgently needed in today’s world.

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From the Streets to the Heart is a limited-edition photobook by award-winning Dutch photographer Ernst Coppejans.

Between 2022 and 2024, Coppejans traveled repeatedly to New York City to meet and photograph LGBTQIA+ youth who had been pushed into homelessness simply for being themselves. The result is a moving collection of 30 portraits, 30 cityscapes, and 30 life stories that shed light on resilience, dignity, and survival in the face of rejection and systemic injustice.

Each portrait is accompanied by a fragment of the person’s story — raw, real, and unfiltered. Through an integrated QR code, readers can listen to the participants’ voices themselves, creating a deeply intimate and multi-sensory experience that goes beyond the printed page.

This book arrives at a critical time. In the United States alone, more than 850 anti-LGBTQIA+ bills have been introduced since 2023, many directly targeting transgender people. Visibility, dignity, and truth are under threat on a daily basis. From the Streets to the Heart bears witness, refusing erasure, and insists: these lives matter.

The project culminated in a major outdoor exhibition in New York’s West Village (summer 2024), presented with Photoville and the Netherlands Consulate General, where it reached thousands of visitors. Now, for the first time, these stories live on in book form.

This is not just a book, it is an urgent call to see, to listen, and to care.

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What’s inside

• 30 large-format portraits of LGBTQIA+ youth in NYC

• 30 New York cityscapes as visual counterpoints

• 30 personal testimonies, printed alongside the portraits

• Integrated QR code linking to recorded voices of the participants

• Essays and reflections by Ernst Coppejans and activist Kate Barnhart (New Alternatives NYC)

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Book specifications

• Format: Hardcover, sewn binding

• Pages: 224

• Size: 18 x 26,7 cm (approx.)

• Paper: Arctic Volume White 150 gsm  

• Printing: Full-color, offset printing

• Edition: Limited first edition of 400 

• Language: English

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Why this book matters

In an era of increasing anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation and hostility, this book serves as both a celebration of resilience and an act of resistance. It connects art with activism, offering visibility and dignity to people who are too often ignored.

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Additional info for buyers

• Ships worldwide.

• A portion of proceeds supports LGBTQIA+ community initiatives.