JR the photograffeur
Last week I worked on an assignment on the French photographer JR. I did a shocking job on the essay, but I'm fascinated with his work. He is a street artist who pastes large format portraits illegally (thus his anonymity) but uses his art as a tool for social activism. Kind of like the photographer version of Banksy. Here are a couple of his projects from his website
Women Are Heroes
JR's portraits of the women of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
He did a similar project in Kibera, Kenya, one of the largest slums in all of Africa. 2000 square metres of rooftops were covered with photos of the eyes and faces of the women of Kibera. The material used is water resistant so that the photo itself will protect the fragile houses in the heavy rain season. The train that passes on this line through Kibera at least twice a day has also been covered with eyes from the women that live below it. With the eyes on the train, the bottom half of the their faces have be pasted on corrugated sheets on the slope that leads down from the tracks to the rooftops. The idea being that for the split second the train passes, their eyes will match their smiles and their faces will be complete.
Face2Face
JR approached 20 professional Israelis and Palestinians and photographed them with a 28mm lens from a distance of about 10cm. The people were asked to make either a funny face or a scary face. 'We told them we were going to exhibit them like large caricatures next to the same professional from the other side and they agreed immediately.' The images were pasted on walls and buildings of the towns from both communities as well as the controversial Israeli security wall.
'The only image they have of each other are the media pictures of terrorists' attacks,' JR emphasises. The goal of their exhibition is to show that all those inhabitants of the two places are not so very different; when you look at the portraits, it becomes difficult to differentiate between a Palestinian and an Israeli.'
The single triptych is of three religious leaders, a Rabbi, a Muslim imam and a Catholic.
Women Are Heroes
JR's portraits of the women of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
He did a similar project in Kibera, Kenya, one of the largest slums in all of Africa. 2000 square metres of rooftops were covered with photos of the eyes and faces of the women of Kibera. The material used is water resistant so that the photo itself will protect the fragile houses in the heavy rain season. The train that passes on this line through Kibera at least twice a day has also been covered with eyes from the women that live below it. With the eyes on the train, the bottom half of the their faces have be pasted on corrugated sheets on the slope that leads down from the tracks to the rooftops. The idea being that for the split second the train passes, their eyes will match their smiles and their faces will be complete.
Face2Face
JR approached 20 professional Israelis and Palestinians and photographed them with a 28mm lens from a distance of about 10cm. The people were asked to make either a funny face or a scary face. 'We told them we were going to exhibit them like large caricatures next to the same professional from the other side and they agreed immediately.' The images were pasted on walls and buildings of the towns from both communities as well as the controversial Israeli security wall.
'The only image they have of each other are the media pictures of terrorists' attacks,' JR emphasises. The goal of their exhibition is to show that all those inhabitants of the two places are not so very different; when you look at the portraits, it becomes difficult to differentiate between a Palestinian and an Israeli.'
The single triptych is of three religious leaders, a Rabbi, a Muslim imam and a Catholic.