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| JR kick starts his projects by taking photographs of his friends in Parisian suburbs |
French artist and photographer JR is known for his big works. He objective is to post giant, unexpected, monochrome photographs in positions of high visibility- including rooftops, church windows and along the sides of transportation vehicles. His goal is clear; to assist viewers in recovering their humanity.
The image above shows us his project face to face, dubbed the largest illegal photo exhibition in the world', appropriated the border wall running the lenght of the disputed areas between Israel and Palestine. Vast photographs of Jews and Palestinians of all denominations, including those with orthodox leanings, grinned comically into the camera. These images ran side by side along considerable lenght of the wall.
He was the winner of the TED Wish Prize. TED (which stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design) sponsors a series of conferences, JR won the 'Wish to Change the World Prize' and he is hoping the world will take his project and make it their own. Previous recipients of the Wish Prize have included Bono, Bill Clinton, Dave Eggers, and Jamie Oliver. At 28, JR is the youngest recipient of the prize since its 2006 inception.
JR worked in Kenya to cover another 1800 meter square of rooftop next to the previous ones. The texture of the banners protect the house from leaking and are kept by the community over the years. The action follow the project 28 Millimetres: Women are Heroes made in Kibera in February 2009. A non-commercial book has been spread to the community, signed by the women from the project. The same action have been done in Spain and Brazil.
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| Portraits of people from both communities on the wall between Israel and the occupied Palestine territories |
He was the winner of the TED Wish Prize. TED (which stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design) sponsors a series of conferences, JR won the 'Wish to Change the World Prize' and he is hoping the world will take his project and make it their own. Previous recipients of the Wish Prize have included Bono, Bill Clinton, Dave Eggers, and Jamie Oliver. At 28, JR is the youngest recipient of the prize since its 2006 inception.
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| Kenya |
JR wants to change the world with his project Inside-Out. He want to reunite people and bring communities together with his art project. He says: "I wish for you to stand up for what you care about by participating in a global art project. And together we'll turn the world INSIDE OUT."
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| Images placed on the facedes of favela homes in Rio |
His preferred tactic is to travel to a place that has received media attention for various reasons. JR creates art that spreads uninvited on buildings of Parisian slums, on walls in the Middle East, on broken bridges in Africa or in built up favela in Brazil. People in the exhibiting communities, those who often live with the bare minimum, discover something absolutely unnecessary but utterly wonderful about the world in which they live. And they don’t just see it, they make it. Elderly women become models for a day; kids turn into artists for a week. It gives the sometimes forgotten members of the community a voice,a visual voice! In this art scene, there is no stage to separate the actors from the spectators. As he is anonymous and doesn’t explain his huge full-frame portraits of people making faces, JR leaves the space empty for an encounter between the subject/protagonist and the passerby/ interpreter.
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| Installation piece for Art Fair in Abu-Dubai |
JR then has the equipment in place to transform the submitted images into poster-sized prints, which he will mail back to his collaborators, so that they can take to the streets wherever they happen to live and paste it up, JR-style. As of 6 p.m., the "Inside Out" website claims to have received 500 photos, and prepared 150 posters to be sent out.
While this may sound like a project that's almost too vast to realize. I have looked at the website and it allows communities to suggest your project with a statement of interest and upload your portraits and in turn JR will return the portraits to be displayed as photo graffiti in your chosen community.
While this may sound like a project that's almost too vast to realize. I have looked at the website and it allows communities to suggest your project with a statement of interest and upload your portraits and in turn JR will return the portraits to be displayed as photo graffiti in your chosen community.
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| Signpost; Tel-Aviv |
TED organizers' endorsement ( £100,000 Wish Prize Fund ) actually makes it possible for "Inside Out" to attain the global scope it aspires to. According to TED's Web site, the prize involves more than cash, and is "designed to leverage the TED Community's exceptional array of talent and resources." No sooner had the honor been announced than assorted big shots were clambering to support JR.
JR's Project Plan
Create a large-scale participatory art project that transforms messages of personal identity into pieces of artistic work. Everyone will be challenged to use black and white photographic portraits to discover, reveal and share the untold stories and images of people around the world. These digitally uploaded images will be made into posters and sent back to the project’s co-creators for them to exhibit in their own communities. People can participate as an individual or in a group; posters can be placed anywhere, from a solitary image in an office window to a wall of portraits on an abandoned building or a full stadium. These exhibitions will be documented, archived and viewable virtually.
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| The Guardian Newspaper 2011 |
The Guardian reports that offers have included a
pledge to help fund a documentary about "Inside Out"
from the founders of the Sundance Film Festival,
a gift of 25,000 square feet of free studio space in
Brooklyn, and access to a network of 150,000
photographers across the world from the founder
of a photography Web site. Google offered to
create an online archive of the photos.
Create a large-scale participatory art project that transforms messages of personal identity into pieces of artistic work. Everyone will be challenged to use black and white photographic portraits to discover, reveal and share the untold stories and images of people around the world. These digitally uploaded images will be made into posters and sent back to the project’s co-creators for them to exhibit in their own communities. People can participate as an individual or in a group; posters can be placed anywhere, from a solitary image in an office window to a wall of portraits on an abandoned building or a full stadium. These exhibitions will be documented, archived and viewable virtually.
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