After winning the TED Prize on March 2, 2011, the French-artist JR launched the Inside Out Project, in his first TED Talk. Using his own artistic practice as inspiration, this participatory platform helps individuals and communities to make a statement by displaying large-scale black and white portraits in public spaces. Through their “Actions,” communities around the world have sparked collaborations and conversations.
Over the past decade, more than 500,000 people spanning across 152 countries and territories have participated in the Inside Out Project. Thanks to participants' donations, the project has reached all the continents, with over 2,500 actions created. Actions have revolved around a range of topics: diversity, community, feminism, racism, climate change, education, children’s rights, and art are just a few of them. Posters are displayed in outdoor spaces that are visible to the public. These Group Action installations are documented and shared online.
Together we can turn the world inside out!
French artist JR creates monumental public art projects that inspire passersby to ask questions and confront their own perceptions. After his first major project Portrait of a Generation (2004-06), which challenged stereotypes of Parisian suburban youth, he began working internationally. Whether it be pasting the faces of Israeli and Palestinian people on both sides of the Separation Wall (2007), the eyes of women on train cars in Kibera, Kenya (2009), or a giant toddler peeking over the US-Mexico border fence (2017), JR’s larger-than-life installations amplify the stories of everyday people and inspire dialogue.
From creating a trompe-l’oeil at the Louvre with 400 volunteers (2019) to pasting alongside incarcerated men in a California maximum-security prison (2019-22), he seeks to involve everyone in the act of artistic creation, hoping to create conversations and drive social change. As of January 2024, his global participatory art project Inside Out has empowered more than half a million people to stand up for what they believe in through large-scale black-and-white portraits. A multimedia artist at his core, JR’s accomplishments include a performance with 154 dancers on thirty-meter-high scaffolding on the Palais Garnier in Paris (2023), the Academy Award-nominated documentary Faces, Places co-directed with Agnés Varda (2017), and a video mural exploring the issue of guns in the USA featured on the cover of Time magazine (2018). JR also has a rigorous studio art practice, creating gallery artworks that are exhibited internationally. He has had major retrospectives at the Brooklyn Museum (2019) and Maison Européenne de la Photographie (2018) as well as shown artworks and installations at the Venice Biennale (2022), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2019), and the NGV Triennial (2020).
Become a Group Leader by organizing an Inside Out Action in your community. Gather 50 or more participants that stand behind a message you are passionate about and paste your portraits in your community.
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