John Kirsch's Projects

These photos are part of an ongoing project documenting the people who use the Gimnasio Nuevo Jordan in a working-class area of Mexico City.

My paternal grandmother, Lurine Kirsch, was lobotomized in the early 1950s. This family secret was withheld from me until after I had spent several days in a mental hospital in 2004. Most of the photographs here were taken at the mental hospital in Iowa where my grandmother underwent her lobotomy. Other images are family photos and mementos.

Photographs in America.

An ongoing visual record of life in Mexico.