Inside Out: The People’s Art Project

Street artist, photographer and activist, or “photograffeur” as he defines himself, Frenchman JR is famous for his gigantic B+W photos, glued to the walls and rooves of cities around the world. The force of his art is its unique quality as outscale urban puzzles, and in the communicative power of images of everyday people. The mysterious artist wanted to do his project Inside Out with ordinary human beings; it arose from a desire to turn the world upside down. He won the TED Prize with it in 2011. JR shared his work and turned it into a huge sounding-board for many different causes, giving thousands of people, in groups, a chance to actively participate in the biggest art-project ever produced. On the Internet and on the street, with a mobile photo- and printing-station, Inside Out Project produced over 130,000 images, which were transformed into posters and hung in 108 countries. We see the vitality and dignity of the youth of Haiti, on the anniversary of the terrible earthquake; the enthusiasm and courage of young Tunisians, shortly after the “Arab Spring”; the pain of a Native American family on a North Dakota reservation at the loss of a son. Working alongside JR, Alastair Siddons collected these stories in his documentary, celebrating “the power of paper and glue”.