Inside Out: The People’s Art Project, a documentary about French artist JR and his participatory art project, is set to air in Paris on November 13. JR has taken his Inside Out Project all over the world, pasting enormous photographs of people onto walls, sidewalks and even construction barriers. Recently, he has set up a photo booth truck allowing anybody to have their photo taken with his signature dotted background and make a larger-than-life print, which is then pasted onto the public square. JR came to New York City in April and set up a truck in Times Square. The truck traveled to London and is currently in Paris.
Long before that, in 2006, it started as a way to engage Parisians and the residents of Clichy Montfermeil (considered the ghetto) in a cross-cultural dialogue. As JR has brought the project to the Israeli-Palestinian border, Sierra Leone, Seoul, Rome, Caracas and other cities around the globe, he has brought attention to issues of inequality, disenfranchisement and violence. His work shows that anonymous people are worth seeing. At the TED Foundation’s award ceremony, where JR received the TED prize in 2011, he said, “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.”
The documentary will air at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF François Mitterand) on November 13 with a special public preview on November 12. It was shown at the TriBecA film festival last April.
Laura is the managing editor of Untapped New York and a freelance writer based in Rome with a passion for covering travel, arts and culture, lifestyle, design, food and wine. Her writing has also appe
